For proper thermal performance, the exposed thermal PowerPAD underneath the integrated circuit package must be soldered to the printed-circuit board.
For good thermal performance, the PowerPAD underneath the integrated circuit TPS54610 needs to be soldered well to the printed-circuit board.
The VIN pins are connected together on the printed-circuit board (PCB) and bypassed with a low-ESR ceramic-bypass capacitor.
Care should be taken to minimize the loop area formed by the bypass capacitor connections, the VIN pins, and the TPS54610 ground pins.
The minimum recommended bypass capacitance is 10-mF ceramic capacitor with a X5R or X7R dielectric and the optimum placement is closest to the VIN pins and the PGND pins.
The TPS54610 has two internal grounds (analog and power). Inside the TPS54610, the analog ground ties to all of the noise sensitive signals, while the power ground ties to the noisier power signals. Noise injected between the two grounds can degrade the performance of the TPS54610, particularly at higher output currents.
However, ground noise on an analog ground plane can also cause problems with some of the control and bias signals. Therefore, separate analog and power ground traces are recommended.
There is an area of ground on the top layer directly under the IC, with an exposed area for connection to the PowerPAD. Use vias to connect this ground area to any internal ground planes.
Additional vias are also used at the ground side of the input and output filter capacitors. The AGND and PGND pins are tied to the PCB ground by connecting them to the ground area under the device as shown.
The only components that tie directly to the power ground plane are the input capacitors, the output capacitors, the input voltage decoupling capacitor, and the PGND pins of the TPS54610.
Use a separate wide trace for the analog ground signal path. The analog ground is used for the voltage set point divider, timing resistor RT, slow-start capacitor and bias capacitor grounds. Connect this trace directly to AGND (Pin 1).
Since the PH connection is the switching node, the inductor is located close to the PH pins. The area of theThe PH pins are tied together and routed to the output inductor. PCB conductor is minimized to prevent excessive capacitive coupling.
Connect the boot capacitor between the phase node and the BOOT pin as shown. Keep the boot capacitor close to the IC and minimize the conductor trace lengths.
Connect the output filter capacitor(s) as shown between the VOUT trace and PGND. It is important to keep the loop formed by the PH pins, LOUT, COUT and PGND as small as practical.
Place the compensation components from the VOUT trace to the VSENSE and COMP pins. Do not place these components too close to the PH trace. Due to the size of the IC package and the device pin-out, they must be routed close, but maintain as much separation as possible while still keeping the layout compact.
Connect the bias capacitor from the VBIAS pin to analog ground using the isolated analog ground trace.
If a slow-start capacitor or RT resistor is used, or if the SYNC pin is used to select 350-kHz operating frequency, connect them to this trace.