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A new Class-K* audio amplifier with high-power efficiency and high fidelity is integrated in a 0.35-μm CMOS process. It proposes a new topology connected Class-D amplifier with fast-switching charge-dump (FSCD) amplifier in parallel. The integration of the amplifier requires neither analog buffer amplifier nor a complex compensation circuit needed in hybrid audio amplifier (Class-K). The FSCD amplifier composed of comparators and switches works at a high-switching frequency in order to absorb the distortion caused by Class-D amplifier switching. Thus, this assists the audio amplifier to have good linearity under switching operation. With the proposed topology, the audio amplifier has a flat frequency response with - 3-dB bandwidth of 60 KHz and is capable of delivering up to 257 mW into 4.1-Ω load with maximum efficiency of 81%. A typical total harmonic distortion plus noise (THD+N) is less than 0.1% at the power level over 25 mW within the audio frequency range (20 Hz-20 kHz), and the minimum THD+N is 0.025% with the audio input frequency of 1 kHz at the output power of 114 mW.

A single-inductor step-up DC-DC switching converter with bipolar outputs is implemented for active-matrix OLED mobile display panels. The positive output voltage is regulated by a boost operation with a modified comparator control (MCC), and the negative output voltage is regulated by a charge-pump operation with a proportional-integral (PI) control. The proposed adaptive current-sensing technique successfully supports the implementation of the proposed converter topology and enables the converter to work in both discontinuous-conduction mode (DCM) and continuous-conduction mode (CCM). In addition, with the MCC method, the converter can guarantee a positive output voltage that has both a fast transient response of the comparator control and a small output voltage ripple of the PWM control. A 4.1 mm2 converter IC fabricated in a 0.5 mum power BiCMOS process operates at a switching frequency of 1 MHz with a maximum efficiency of 82.3% at an output power of 330 mW.

A one-chip class-E inverter controller is implemented in a 0.35 mum standard CMOS process. The control IC generates a control signal to turn on or off the insulated-gate bipolar transistor switch of the class-E inverter power supply driving a magnetron load which generates 2.45 GHz microwave for heating. It provides active power factor correction, soft start, and thermal protection. The rated RF output power of the magnetron is around 1.2 kW for a 100 V AC line, and an input power factor of over 0.98 is maintained. The proposed integrated solution gives better system performance with lower cost than conventional discrete solutions.

An integrated five-output single-inductor multiple-output dc-dc converter with ordered power-distributive control (OPDC) in a 0.5 mum Bi-CMOS process is presented. The converter has four main positive boost outputs programmable from +5 V to +12 V and one dependent negative output ranged from -12 V to -5 V. A maximum efficiency of 80.8% is achieved at a total output power of 450 mW, with a switching frequency of 700 kHz. The performance of the converter as a commercial product is successfully verified with a new control method and proposed circuits, including a full-waveform inductor-current sensing circuit, a variation-free frequency generator, and an in-rush-current-free soft-start method. With simplicity, flexibility, and reliability, the design enables shorter time-to-market in future extensions with more outputs and different operation requirements.

Cost and size are very important issues for power-management ICs (PMICs), in particular for portable systems where typically multiple voltage levels are required to achieve multi functionality. To meet these requirements, a single-inductor multiple-output (SIMO) switching converter is a very strong candidate. SIMO converters have been the subject of many recent studies and reports [1–3]. The presented converters uses the current-mode controller and PWM with a constant switching frequency. However, designing the feedback control loop of the PWM converters is not an easy task since their stability inherently depends on the load conditions.

A charge pump drive circuit for LED lighting is proposed. This circuit is realized with repeated use of a compact unit module consisted of a capacitor and diodes. The series-charge and parallel-discharge operation gives the efficiency better than the conventional converters with AC line input. This paper also shows how to minimize the number of modules for a given number of LEDs. A prototype implemented the charge pump drive circuit shows a maximum efficiency of 95% for 22 LEDs in series with the AC line voltage of 220 Vrms.

A fully on-chip CMOS VGA-based load- independent linear amplitude modulator is implemented for class E1, E2 power amplifiers of GSM/EDGE polar transmitter. By utilizing VGA-based 3-path architecture based on capacitor-free low-dropout linear regulator (LDO), the proposed circuit provides fast and stable operation at all-load conditions including open load when the battery varies from 3.4 V to 5.5 V. The small-signal bandwidth is wider than 5 MHz and the phase margin is bigger than 64deg at the worst-case-simulation condition. The circuit can stably drive output load-current of 0 to 1.6 A at a static bias-current of under 1 mA. The output voltage varies from 0.43 V to 3.2 V when the input reference-voltage VRAMP varies from 0.2 V to 1.5 V. The chip is fabricated in a TSMC 0.35 mum mixed-mode CMOS 2P 4M process and the size of pass transistor is 1.6 mm times 1 mm.

A fast switching charge dump assisted class-D audio amplifier is presented in this paper. To achieve high efficiency and high linearity, the Class-K* audio amplifier consists of the class D amplifier with high efficiency and the proposed charge dump amplifier with high linearity. The charge pump amplifier works at faster switching frequency than class D amplifier so as to compensate the distortion caused by switching of the class-D amplifier. The class-K* audio amplifier implemented in 0.35mum CMOS process shows -71.8 dB THD+N at 1 KHz and a maximum efficiency of 81% at an output power of 257 mW for 4.1Omega load.

The current or voltage driving schemes are employed for pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) in AMOLED displays. Current driving methods have advantages over voltage driving schemes including improvement of luminance uniformity at display panels and compensation of TFT characteristics at pixels. degrade the driving accuracy. This paper introduces a direct-type fast feedback current (DFFC) driver that offers fast settling time with good accuracy by comparing the data with the pixel current directly. An optimum compensation method for the feedback loop is suggested as well.

A single-chip dual-output step-up DC-DC converter is implemented for active-matrix OLED mobile display panels. The bipolar outputs are regulated independently and integrated with a boost and a charge-pump topology sharing a single inductor. The chip is 4.1mm2 fabricated in a 0.5 mum power BiCMOS process and operates at 1MHz with a maximum efficiency of 82.3% at an output power of 330mW.