31.7 A 3.6W 16V-Output 180ns-Response-Time 94%-Efficiency SC Sigma Converter with Output Impedance Compensation and Ripple Mitigation for LiDAR Driver Applications

The rapid adoption of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology, driven by emerging applications such as autonomous driving and 3D sensing and mapping, has resulted in a significant surge in market growth. In typical LiDAR receivers, photodiodes detect incoming photons and simultaneously generate substantial current that translates into voltage signals. To minimize the detection intervals, photodiode voltage supply must recover rapidly from current transient events. Maintaining a high voltage with minimal ripple is also crucial for enhancing sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To address these requirements in battery or USB-powered systems, a step-up DC-DC converter with high voltage (HV) (>15V), fast transient response (hundreds of ns), high efficiency and power density is in high demand. While traditional switched-capacitor (SC) converters [1, 2] generate high voltage only using capacitors, their efficiency is low in close-loop and the load response is limited by the switching frequency. Such converters also exhibit inadequate voltage accuracy during heavy loads. Hybrid boost converters [3, 4], on the other hand, usually have lower loop bandwidth due to the right-half-plane (RHP) zero, which result in even slower transient speed. Also, the power density is constrained by bulky inductors. In [5], an SC converter cascading a post-regulator is used for accurate voltage regulation. However, the regulator is designed with HV devices in the HV domain, so curtails the bandwidth and constrains load transient speed.