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20
2003 Semtech Corp.
www.semtech.com
SC1404
PRELIMINARY
POWER MANAGEMENT
Layout Guidelines
As with any high frequency switching regulator design, a good PCB
layout is very essential in order to achieve optimum noise, effi-
ciency, and stability performance of the converter. Before starting
to layout the PCB, a careful layout strategy is strongly recom-
mended. See the PCB layout in the SC1404 Evaluation Kit manual
for example. In most applications, we recommend to use FR4
with 4 or more layers and at least 2 oz copper (for output current
up to 6A). Use at least one inner layer for ground connection. And
it is always a good practice to tie signal ground and power ground
at one single point so that the signal ground is not easily contami-
nated. Also be sure that high current paths have low inductance
and resistance by making trace widths as wide as possible and
lengths as short as possible. Properly decouple lines that pull
large amounts of current in short periods of time. The following
step by step layout strategy should be used in order to fully utilize
the potential of SC1404.
Step #1. Power train components placement.
a. Power train arrangement.
Place power train components first. The figure below shows the
recommended power train arrangement. Q1 is the main switching
FET, Q2 is the synchronous Rectifier FET, D1 is the Schottky diode
and L1 is the output inductor. The phase node, where the source
Q2
D1
Q1
L1
of the upper switching FET and the drain of the synchronous recti-
fier meets, since it switches at very high rate of speed, is generally
the largest source of common-mode noise in the converter circuit.
It should be kept to a minimum size consistent with its connectiv-
ity and current carrying requirements. Also place the Schottky di-
ode as close to the phase node as possible to minimize the trace
inductance, to reduce the efficiency loss due to the current ramp-
up and down time. This becomes extremely important when the
converter needs to handle high di/dt requirements.
b. Current Sense.
Minimize the length of current sense signal trace. Keep it less
than 15mm. Kelvin connections should be used; try to keep the
traces parallel to each other and route them close to each other
as much as possible. Even though SC1404 implements Virtual
Current Sense scheme, the current sense signal is sampled by
the SC1404 to determine the PSAVE threshold. See the following
figure for a Kelvin connection of the current sense signal.
c. Gate Drive.
SC1404 has built-in gate drivers capable of sinking/sourcing 1A
peaks. Upper gate drive signals are noisier than the lower ones.
Therefore, place them away from sensitive analog circuitries. Make
sure the lower gate traces are as close as possible to the IC pins
and both upper and lower gate traces as wide as possible.
Step #2: PWM controller placement (pins) and signal ground is-
land.
Connect all analog grounds to a separate solid copper island
plane, which connects to the SC1404’s GND pin. This includes
REF, COMP3, COMP5, SYNC, RUN/ON3, ON5, PSV# and RESET#.
Step #3: Ground plane arrangement.
There are several ways to tie the different grounds together. Since
this is a buck topology converter, the output ground is relatively
quieter than the input ground. Therefore connect analog ground
to power ground at the output side. Often it is useful to use a
separate ground symbol for the two grounds, and tie the two
grounds together at a single point through a 0
resistor. The
power ground for the input side and the power ground for the
output side is the same ground and they can be tied together
using internal planes.
CSH
CSL
SC1404
Rcs
L1