10.1 Layout Guidelines
Layout is a critical portion of good power supply design. There are several signal paths that conduct fast changing currents or voltages that can interact with stray inductance or parasitic capacitance to generate noise or degrade performance. See Figure 68 for a PCB layout example.
- To reduce parasitic effects, the VIN pin should be bypassed to ground with a low ESR ceramic bypass capacitor with X5R or X7R dielectric.
- Care should be taken to minimize the loop area formed by the bypass capacitor connections, the VIN pin, and the anode of the catch diode. The SW pin should be routed to the cathode of the catch diode and to the output inductor. Since the SW connection is the switching node, the catch diode and output inductor should be located close to the SW pins, and the area of the PCB conductor minimized to prevent excessive capacitive coupling.
- The GND pin should be tied directly to the thermal pad under the IC. The thermal pad should be connected to internal PCB ground planes using multiple vias directly under the IC.
- For operation at full rated load, the top side ground area must provide adequate heat dissipating area.
- The RT/CLK pin is sensitive to noise so the RT resistor should be located as close as possible to the IC and routed with minimal lengths of trace.
- The additional external components can be placed approximately as shown.
- It may be possible to obtain acceptable performance with alternate PCB layouts, however this layout has been shown to produce good results and is meant as a guideline.
Boxing in the components in the design of Figure 48 the estimated printed circuit board surface area is 1.025 in2 (661 mm2). This area does not include test points or connectors. If the area needs to be reduced, this can be done by using a two sided assembly and replacing the 0603 sized passives with a smaller sized equivalent.
10.1.1 Power Dissipation Estimate
The following formulas show how to estimate the TPS54361-Q1 power dissipation under continuous conduction mode (CCM) operation. These equations must not be used if the device is operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM).
The power dissipation of the IC includes conduction loss (PCON), switching loss E, gate drive loss (Pg) and supply current (PQ). Example calculations are shown with the 12-V typical input voltage of the design example.
- Conduction loss
Equation 56.
where
- IO is the output current (A)
- rDS(on) is the on-resistance of the high-side MOSFET (Ω)
- VO is the output voltage (V)
- V(VIN) is the input voltage (V)
- Switching loss:
Equation 57. E = V
I × ƒ
S × I
O × t
r = 12 V × 600 kHz × 3.5 A × 4.9 ns = 0.123 A
where
- E is the switching loss
- ƒS is the switching frequency (Hz)
- tr is the SW pin voltage rise time and can be estimated by trise = V(VIN) × 0.16 ns/V + 3 ns
- Gate charge loss:
Equation 58. P
G = V
(VIN) × Q
g × ƒ
S = 12 V × 3 nC × 600 kHz = 0.022 W
where
- Qg is the total gate charge of the internal MOSFET
- Quiescent current loss:
Equation 59. P
Q = V
(VIN) × I
Q = 12 V × 152 µA = 0.0018 W
where
- IQ is the operating nonswitching supply current
Therefore,
Equation 60. Ptot = PCON + E + PG + PQ = 0.45 W + 0.123 W + 0.022 W + 0.0018 W = 0.597 W
For given TA:
Equation 61. T
J = T
A + R
th × P
tot
where
- TA is the ambient temperature (°C)
- TJ is the junction temperature (°C)
- Ptot is the total device power dissipation (W)
- Rth is the thermal resistance of the package (°C/W)
For given TJmax = 150°C:
Equation 62. T
Amax = T
Jmax – R
th × P
tot
where
- TJmax is maximum junction temperature (°C)
- TAmax is maximum ambient temperature (°C)
Additional power losses occur in the regulator circuit because of the inductor AC and DC losses, the catch diode, and PCB trace resistance impacting the overall efficiency of the regulator.