Output voltage setting and protections

L6738A

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Doc ID 18134 Rev 2

6

Output voltage setting and protections

The L6738A is capable of precisely regulating an output voltage as low as 0.8 V. In fact, the

device comes with a fixed 0.8 V internal reference that guarantees the output regulated

voltage to be within ±0.5% tolerance over line and temperature variations (excluding output

resistor divider tolerance, when present).

the FB pin and ground. Referring to Figure 1, the steady-state DC output voltage is:

The L6738A monitors the voltage at the VSEN pin and compares it to the internal reference

voltage in order to provide undervoltage and overvoltage protections, as well as PGOOD

signal. According to the level of VSEN, different actions are performed from the controller:

●

PGOOD

If the voltage monitored through VSEN exits from the PGOOD window limits, the device

de-asserts the PGOOD signal.

PGOOD is asserted at the end of the soft-start phase with 3x clock cycles delay.

●

Undervoltage protection (UV)

If the voltage at the VSEN pin drops below the UV threshold, the device turns off both

HS and LS MOSFETs, latching the condition. Cycle VCC or EN to recover.

UV is also active during SS acting as VIN detection protection. See description below.

●

Overvoltage protection (OV)

If the voltage at the VSEN pin rises over the OV threshold, overvoltage protection turns

off the HS MOSFET and turns on the LS MOSFET. The LS MOSFET is turned off as

soon as VSEN goes below Vref/2. The condition is latched, cycle VCC/EN to recover.

Note that, even if the device is latched, the device still controls the LS MOSFET and

can switch it on whenever VSEN rises above the OV threshold.

●

PreOVP protection

Monitors VSEN when IC is disabled. If VSEN surpasses the OV threshold, IC turns on

the low-side MOSFET to protect the load. On the EN rising edge, the protection is

disabled and the IC implements the SS procedure.

PreOVP is disabled when EN is high but the OV protection becomes operative.

●

VIN detection

UV Protection active during SS allows the IC to detect whether input voltage VIN is

present. If UV is triggered during the soft-start, it resets the SS procedure: the

controller re-implements the initial delay and re-ramps-up the reference with the same

SS timings described in Section 5.

The UV protection is then avoiding that IC starts-up if VIN is not present.

Protections are active also during soft-start (See Section 5).

V

OUT

V

REF

1

R

FB

R

OS

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