A 10 nA Ultra-Low Quiescent Current and 60 ns Fast Transient Response Low-Dropout Regulator for Internet-of-Things

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. I, Regular papers Regular papers, 2022-01, Vol.69 (1), p.139-147
• Main Authors: Huang, Jia-Rui, Wen, Yong-Hwa, Yang, Tzu-Hsien, Lee, Jia-Jyun, Liu, Guan-Ting, Chen, Ke-Horng, Lin, Ying-Hsi, Lin, Shian-Ru, Tsai, Tsung-Yen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive control; Current comparators; Electronic devices; Error compensation; fast transient response; Internet of Things; Logic gates; Low dropout regulator (LDO); low quiescent current; MOSFET; Recovery time; Regulators; Steady-state; Time measurement; Transient analysis; Transient response; Voltage control
• ISSN: 1549-8328; 1558-0806
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSI.2021.3093057

Ultra-low quiescent current ( I_{Q} ) low-dropout regulator is the only solution for compact size Internet of Things (IoT) electronic devices. This paper presents an ultra-low I_{Q} low dropout regulator, including low I_{Q} error amplifier (EA) compensated by the adaptive current control (ACC), low leakage feedback network, low I_{Q} current comparator, analog transient enhancement (ATE), and digital transient enhancement (DTE). The chip was fabricated in a standard 0.5~\mu \text{m} CMOS process. Measurement results show the current peak efficiency of the LDO is as high as 99.99%. Besides, owing to ATE and DTE circuits, when the load current changes from 1mA to 50mA with a 10 ns edge time, the measured undershoot and overshoot voltages are 75 mV and 50 mV, respectively, with the recovery time ( T_{R} ) of 60 ns and 80 ns, respectively, where the best 0.003 ps FoM is achieved.