APPLICATIONS INFORMATION
Ipp
2
Inductor Selection
Ipeak= iout(max) +
There are many factors to consider in se-
lectingtheinductor, including:corematerial,
inductance vs. frequency, current handling
capability, efficiency, size and EMI. In a typi-
cal SP765ꢀ circuit, the inductor is chosen
primarily by operating frequency, saturation
current and DC resistance. Increasing the
inductor value will decrease output voltage
ripple, but degrade transient response. Low
inductorvaluesprovidethesmallestsize,but
cause large ripple currents, poor efficiency
and require more output capacitance to
smooth out the larger ripple current. The
inductor must be able to handle the peak
current at the switching frequency without
saturating, and the copper resistance in the
winding should be kept as low as possible to
minimize resistive power loss. A good com-
promisebetweensize, lossandcostistoset
the inductor ripple current to be within 20%
to 40% of the maximum output current.
...andprovidelowcorelossatthehighswitch-
ingfrequency.Lowcostpowdered-ironcores
are inappropriate for 900kHz operation
.
Gappedferriteinductorsarewidelyavailable
for consideration. Select devices that have
operating data shown up to ꢀMHz. Ferrite
materials, on the other hand, are more
expensive and have an abrupt saturation
characteristic with the inductance dropping
sharply when the peak design current is
exceeded. Nevertheless, they are preferred
at high switching frequencies because they
present very low core loss and the design
only needs to prevent saturation. In general,
ferrite or molypermalloy materials will be
used with the SP765ꢀ.
Optimizing Efficiency
Thepowerdissipatedintheinductorisequal
to the sum of the core and copper losses. To
minimize copper losses, the winding resis-
tance needs to be minimized, but this usu-
ally comes at the expense of using a larger
inductor.Corelosseshaveamoresignificant
contribution at low output current where the
copper losses are at a minimum, and can
typically be neglected at higher output cur-
rents where the copper losses dominate.
Core loss information is usually available
from the magnetics vendor. Proper inductor
selection can affect the resulting power sup-
ply efficiency by more than 15-20%!
The switching frequency and the inductor
operatingpointdeterminetheinductorvalue
as follows:
Vout (Vin(max) - Vout)
Vin(max) fs Kr Iout(max)
L=
where:
Fs = switching frequency
Kr = ratio of the AC inductor ripple current
to the maximum output current
The copper loss in the inductor can be cal-
culated using the following equation:
The peak-to-peak inductor ripple current
is:
PL(cu)=i2L(rms) rwinding
Vout(Vin(max) - Vout)
Ipp=
Vin(max) fs L
where IL(RMS) is the RMS inductor current
that can be calculated as follows:
Once the required inductor value is se-
lected, the proper selection of core mate-
rial is based on peak inductor current and
efficiency requirements. The core must be
large enough not to saturate at the peak
inductor current...
2
Ipp
ꢀ
3
IL(rms)=iout(max) 1 + ( Iout(max))
Rev J: 3/ꢀ4/07
SP765ꢀ Wide Input Voltage Range 3A, 900kHz, Buck Regulator
© Copyright 2007 Sipex Corporation
7