Current-driven pwm controller having a power saving means

Abstract

Incorporating the PWM function with the power saving means develops the PWM controller in which the switching frequency is decreased in response to the decrease of the load. Further, the current-driven design minimizes the circuitry and reduces the cost of the PWM controller. Since most of the control signals are operated in current mode, the die size of integrated circuit of the PWM controller is greatly reduced. An off-time modulator is provided for power saving in which the discharge current of the oscillator is modulated. Keeping the maximum on-time of the PWM signal as a constant and increasing the off-time of the PWM signal extends the switching period in light load conditions. The off-time modulation is the function of a feedback current, which is derived from the feedback loop. An array of current operation is designed to generate the feedback voltage for the PWM control and meanwhile produces a modulated discharge current for power saving. A minimum discharge current is limited to prevent the switching frequency from flowing into the audio-band. Moreover, the minimum discharge current is switched on/off in response to the state of the supply voltage in which the minimum discharge current is disabled when the supply voltage is high, and enabled once the supply voltage is lower than a threshold voltage; thereby preventing insufficient power from being supplied from the auxiliary bias winding for the PWM controller.