The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 24, 2012
Filed:
Aug. 20, 2010
Fadi H. Gebara, Austin, TX (US);
Jente B. Kuang, Austin, TX (US);
Abraham Mathews, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A distributed charge pump system uses a delay element and frequency dividers to generate out of phase pump clock signals that drive different charge pumps, to offset peak current clock edges for each charge pump and thereby reduce overall peak power. Clock signal division and phase offset may be extended to multiple levels for further smoothing of the pump clock signal transitions. A dual frequency divider may be used which receives the clock signal and its complement, and generates two divided signals that are 90° out of phase. In an illustrative embodiment the clock generator comprises a variable-frequency clock source, and a voltage regulator senses an output voltage of the charge pumps, generates a reference voltage based on a currently selected frequency of the variable-frequency clock source, and temporarily disables the charge pumps (by turning off local pump clocks) when the output voltage is greater than the reference voltage.