On 2/27/2012 12:48 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:
If you are really time-nutty, you can let the DC/DC converters produce
a voltage about 1V above what you need and use low noise LDOs (ie not
the 78xx or LM317& Co) to produce the voltages for the thunderbolt.
This should give you a 60-80dB damping of the noice produced by the
DC/DC converters.
Attila Kinali
Having designed LDO chips, people expect them to perform miracles well
beyond reality. If you have a PNP pass and you are sitting near dropout,
you get control loops that are an ugly combination of a path to keep the
PNP from getting saturated plus one to control the voltage. With P-fet
pass devices, the control is better (no sat killer needed with a fet),
but still you are trying to regulate with what amount to be a variable
resistor.
You really don't get that much filtering at switcher frequencies with
LDOs, plus some regulators can't handle too low of an ESR. If you care
about noise, screw efficiency and go with a shunt regulator. There are
hack circuits on the net to take 431s plus external components to roll a
decent shunt. Note the shunt regulator makes the DC/DC happy by
presenting a uniform load.
If you do a shunt right, the bypass capacitor will do all the work. This
is somewhat true with a P-fet pass regulator, where Cds is forming a cap
divider with your bypass. I never really warmed up to PNP pass devices,
but they are best for high voltage applications.
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
