DC-DC Switching Boost Converter

by

Anita Soni

ECE 345
Senior Design Final Report

TA: Inseop Lee

May 4, 1999
Project Number: 63
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ABSTRACT

The switching power supply market is flourishing quickly in today’s high-tech world. Design

engineers aren’t always supplied with the desired amount of voltage they need in order to make

their design work. Adding an additional voltage supply to a design is not always cost efficient.

This report is intended to provide the designer with a method of boosting DC voltage from 5 Volts

to 12 Volts, by using a DC-DC switching boost converter designed specifically for this task. All

goals, design procedures, tests, data, conclusions, and costs have been documented within this

report. Results of experiments show that the switching converter will boost voltage from 5 volts to

12 volts with power conversion efficiency of 73 percent.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………1

1.1 Purpose of the Project.……………………………………………………………1

1.2 Block Diagram……………………………………………………………………1

1.3 Specifications……………………………………………………………………..1

2. Design Procedures …………..…………………………………………………………..2

2.1 General Boost Converter Configuration………………………………………….2

2.2 Component Functions…………………………………………………………….3

3. Design Details……………………………………………………………………………3

3.1 Detailed Circuit Description and Function..………………………………………3

3.2 Component Calculations……………………………………………………….…4

3.3 Simulation Procedure……………………………………………………………..6

4. Design Verification………………………………………………………………………6

4.1 Test Setup ……………...…………………………………………………………6

4.2 Design Modifications……..………………………………………………………7

4.3 Test Results……………………………………………………………………….7

5. Costs…………………………………………………………………………………….11

5.1 Parts Cost Estimate………………………………………………………………11

5.2 Labor Cost Estimate……………………………………………………………..11

6. Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..11

7. Appendix 1: Data Sheet for MC33063…………………………………………………12

8. Appendix 2: Simulation results………………………………………………………...16

9. Appendix 3: Complete schematic…..…………………………………………………..18

10. Appendix 4: References...………………………………………………………………19

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1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of the Project

Efficiency, size, and cost are the primary advantages of switching power converters

when compared to linear converters. Switching power converter efficiencies can run

between 70-80%, whereas linear converters are usually 30% efficient. The DC-DC

Switching Boost Converter is designed to provide an efficient method of taking a

given DC voltage supply and boosting it to a desired value.

1.2 Block Diagram

The basic building blocks of a boost converter circuit are shown in Fig. 1.

Magnetic
Field Storage
Element

Voltage Switch Switching Output

Source Control Element Rectifier and
Filter

Fig. 1 Block diagram

The voltage source provides the input DC voltage to the switch control, and to the

magnetic field storage element. The switch control directs the action of the

switching element, while the output rectifier and filter deliver an acceptable DC

voltage to the output.

1.3 Specifications

Design engineers working in today’s high tech environment have to deal with a

rapidly changing market of electronic products and components. As new technology

develops, integrated circuits function faster and are smaller in size. However, many

integrated circuits still require a voltage of 12 volts in order to function. The DC-DC
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Switching Boost Converter will take a 5 Volt DC voltage supply with 10 %

tolerance and deliver 12 Volts across the load. The maximum output ripple will be

2% of the output voltage, while the maximum current delivered to the load will be

100 mA. The circuit will operate with a minimum efficiency of 70%.

2. Design Procedures

2.1 General Boost Converter Configuration

Several different boost converter designs have been developed in the past. In order

to achieve the results specified for this project, the output voltage of the converter

needs to be higher than the input voltage. This type of converter operates in the

flyback-mode. The flyback-mode boost converter is shown below, in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 Flyback-mode boostdrawn

converter
When the transistor is conducting, current is being through the inductor. At

this time energy is being stored in the inductor. When the transistor stops conducting

the inductor voltage flies back or reverses because the current through the inductor

cannot change instantaneously. The voltage across the inductor increases to a value

that is higher than the combined voltage across the diode and the output capacitor.

As soon as this value is reached, the diode starts conducting and the voltage that

appears across the output capacitor, is higher than the input voltage.
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2.2 Component Functions

The inductor shown in Fig. 2 acts as the magnetic field storage element shown in

Fig. 1. It stores energy in its core material. The ideal PWM functions as the switch

control and the transistor acts as the switch element. A diode and an output capacitor

are used to perform the function of the output rectifier and filter block.

3. Design Details

3.1 Detailed Circuit Description and Function

The MC33063 control chip manufactured by Motorola was used for the switch

control. Appendix 1 shows the data sheet for this control chip. This particular chip

was chosen because of the minimum number of external components required to

implement the design. The transistor shown in Fig. 2 is internal to the control chip.

Therefore, an external switch will not be required. This device also consists of a

1.25 V reference regulator, a comparator, and a controlled duty cycle oscillator. The

oscillator charges and discharges an external timing capacitor. The upper threshold

of the timing capacitor is equal to the reference regulator voltage of 1.25 V.

The value of the timing capacitor sets the frequency of the entire circuit and controls

the rate of operation of the oscillator. When the capacitor is charging the voltage at

the lower input of the AND gate is high. The comparator inverting input is

connected to two external resistors, which control the duty cycle of the circuit. When

the output voltage of the converter falls below the required value, the inverted input

of the comparator will fall below 1.25 V. Then the comparator will output a Logic

‘1’ and the SR latch will set, enabling the transistor to conduct until 1.25 V is again

present at both inputs of the comparator. The timing capacitor will then discharge.

A Logic ‘0’ will be present at the lower input of the AND gate and the transistor will
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stop conducting.

3.2 Component Calculations

In order for the circuit to function properly, the external components need to be

calculated carefully. When the switch is on, the voltage across the inductor is

di ILPK
VL  L L (1)
dt ton

and the current is given by

Vin  Vsat  (2)

ILon   ton
 L 

When the switch is off, the voltage across the inductor is given by

di  IL min  ILPK  (3)

VL  L  L 
dt  toff 
and the current is given by

Vout  VF  Vin 
ILoff  ILpk   toff (4)
 L
VF is the forward voltage drop of the output rectifier and Vsat is the saturation voltage

of the output switch. Since ILon= ILoff, Eqs.(2) and (4) can be set equal to each other.

This operation gives a ratio for the on time over the off time. This ratio is given by

ton Vout  VF  Vin (min)

 (5)
toff Vin (min)  Vsat

The values of Vin(miu), VF, Vout, and Vsat are 4.5 V, 0.8 V, 12V, and 0.3 V respectively.

The inverse of the frequency of operation yields the on time plus the off time.

The frequency of operation for this boost converter was chosen to be 62.5 kHz.

Therefore,

1 (6)
ton  toff   16 s
f
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Equations (5) and (6) yield an on time of 9.834s and an off time of 6.166s. The

duty cycle is given by

ton
D (7)
ton  toff
The calculated duty cycle of this circuit is 61.5%. The value of the external timing

capacitor is calculated using

CT  [4.0 * 10^ (5)] * ton (8)

The value of the timing capacitor is 390 pF. The peak current through the switch is

given by
 ton  (9)
Ipkswitch  2 * Iout   1
 toff 

and the minimum required inductance is given by

Vin (min)  Vsat 
L min    (10)
 Ipkswitch 
The calculated value of the minimum inductance is 80 H. The resistance required

for the current sense resister is given by

0.3
Rsc  (11)
Ipkswitch
The calculated value for the current sense resistor is 0.5 . The value of the output

capacitor is given by
Iout
Cout  ton (12)
Vripple
Using a 0.6 V for Vripple, Cout is equal to 1.68 F. The values of the resistors used to

control the duty cycle are given by

 R2 
Vout  1.25 1  (13)
 R1 

R1 and R2 were chosen to be 2.4 k and 20.64 k, respectively.

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3.3 Simulation Procedure

Figure 4 shows the exact circuit that was used in the PSPICE simulation.

Fig. 4 PSPICE simulation

A pulse was used to mimic the operation of the control chip. An on time of 9.83us

and an off time of 6.16us were entered into the attributes of the pulse. The circuit

was simulated with a 120  resister connected across the output capacitor. The

results of the simulation have been included in Appendix 2. Figure A2.1 shows the

waveform of the voltage at the switching node of the converter. Figure A2.2 shows

the waveform of the output voltage. The output voltage levels are at 12 V.

4. Design Verification

4.1 Test Setup

The boost converter was built on a standard breadboard. The 5 VDC input voltage

was supplied by a Hewlett Packard power supply. All DC measurements were taken

using Fluke multimeters, and all waveforms were obtained via an oscilloscope.
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4.2 Design Modifications

To obtain the necessary boosting action, the 80uH inductor was increased to a 120uH

inductor with a thicker gauge wire, manufactured by Coil Craft. In order to

eliminate noise at the output, all wire lengths were shortened. To eliminate noise

from the ground plane, 0.1 uF capacitors were added to the input and the output of

the circuit. The 1.68uF capacitor was increased to 56 uF, in order to decrease the

output ripple. The resulting circuit schematic has been inserted into Appendix 3.

4.3 Test Results

The first waveform shown in Fig. 5 is a picture of the voltage at the switching node.

Fig. 5 Voltage across the switching node and timing capacitor

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The frequency of operation is 61.33kHz. The circuit is operating with a 63.2% duty

Cycle. The second waveform shows the voltage across the timing capacitor. The

upper threshold of the timing capacitor can be seen to be 1.25V.

As shown in Fig. 6, the output ripple is 190mV, or 1.6%, when a 120  resistor is

used as the load.

Fig. 6 Output Ripple with a 120  load resistor.

Figure 7 shows the output ripple with no load connected across the output. Under

this condition, the output ripple is 0.04% of the output voltage.

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Fig. 7 Output ripple with no load

The output ripple waveform shown in Figure 8, was taken with a 145 

load resistor. In this case, the output ripple is also 1.6%.

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Fig. 8 Output ripple with 145 ohm load resistor

Table 1 shows the input and output voltages, input and output currents, ripple

percentage, and power efficiencies with three different load conditions.

TABLE 1. TEST RESULTS

120 Ohms No Load 145 Ohms

Input Voltage 4.993 V 4.993 V 4.993 V
Input Current 0.318 A 0.0045 A 0.277 A
Output Voltage 12.110 V 12.047 V 12.012 V
Output Current 0.0954 A 0A 0.0802 A
Output Ripple 1.6 % 0.04 % 1.6 %
Efficiency 73% Not Applicable 71%

The circuit was also tested to make sure it would function properly with a 5VDC

supply that had 10% tolerance. An input voltage was 4.5 V corresponded to an
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output voltage of 12.1. An input voltage of 5.5 V, gave 12.1V at the output.

5. Costs

5.1 Parts Cost Estimate

The part numbers and values of all components have been listed in Table 2.

Table 2 COMPONENT COSTS

Part Designation Description Quantity Price
MC33063A Converter Control 1 $1.22
PCH45124 120uH Inductor 1 $1.37
1N5819 Schottky Diode 1 $0.81
-------------------- Subtotal ----------- $3.40
0.1uF Capacitor 2 $0.10
100 uF Electrolytic Capacitor 1 $0.19
50 uF Electrolytic Capacitor 1 $0.15
CT 390 pF Capacitor 1 $0.07
-------------------- Estimated Capacitor Total ------------ $0.51
Rsc 1  ¼ Watt Resistor 2 $0.10
Rcurrent Limit 33  ¼ Watt Resistor 1 $0.05
R1 2.4 k ¼ Watt Resistor 1 $0.05
R2 20.6 k ¼ Watt Resistor 1 $0.05
RL 50  10W Power Resistor 4 $2.08
-------------------- Estimated Resistor Total ------------ $2.33
-------------------- Component Total Cost $5.43

5.2 Labor Cost Estimate

The labor cost was calculated using an hourly wage of $25.00. The average number

of hours spent on this project were 8 hours per week, for 12 weeks.

Total Labor Cost =8*12*2.5*25=$4500 (14)

Grand Total = $5.43 +$6000=$6005.43 (15)

6. Conclusions

All of the specifications stated previously have been met by this boost converter design.

The output voltage across the output capacitor is 12V with a maximum output ripple of

1.6%. The power efficiency of the circuit exceeds 70 % for the load range of 120-145.

However an additional constraint needs to be put on the load. The load must not exceed 150
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. This will cause the efficiency to fall below the specified value of 70%.
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APPENDIX 4. REFERENCES

Marty Brown, Practical Switching Power Supply Design, New York: Academic Press, Inc.,

1990, pp. 5-26.

Irving M. Gottlieb, Power Supplies, Switching Regulators, Inverters, & Converters, New

York: McGraw-Hill, 1993, pp. 132-141.

D. M. Mitchell, DC-DC Switching Regulator Analysis, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988,

pp. 153-159.

G. Seguier, Power Electronic Converters: DC-DC Conversion, New York, Springer-Verlag,

Inc., 1993, pp. 201-217.