Patent ID: 9584015
Date: 2017-02-28
CPC Classifications: H02M

Claim:
1. A controller for determining a distribution of switching phases among switching elements of a power supply system, the power supply system comprising a plurality of voltage converters, wherein each voltage converter comprises a switching element and is arranged to convert an input voltage supplied to the voltage converters to a respective output voltage by switching the switching element at a predetermined switching frequency, the controller comprising: a receiver for receiving one or more signals indicative of a respective contribution from each of the voltage converters to a ripple current component of an input current of the voltage converters; a rank determining module configured to rank the voltage converters in order of decreasing contribution to the ripple current; a switching phase offset calculator configured to calculate a respective switching phase offset that is to be applied for the switching element in each of the voltage converters by: (i) calculating respective phase offsets of the two highest ranked voltage converters that would minimize an input current ripple caused only by said two highest ranked voltage converters; (ii) calculating a phase offset of the next-highest ranked voltage converter that would minimize an input current ripple caused only by said next-highest ranked voltage converter and the voltage converters ranked higher than said next-highest voltage converter; and (iii) repeating step (ii) for each subsequent voltage converter in the ranking; and an output signal generator configured to generate one or more output signals defining the calculated switching phase offsets to be applied to the switching of the respective switching elements.