Patent ID: 8339185

Claim:
A charge pump system comprising: a master charge pump section to provide an output voltage at an external output node, including: first regulation circuitry connected to receive the output voltage and a reference voltage and supply an oscillator signal having a frequency determined from the output voltage and the reference voltage; and a first charge pump connected to receive the oscillator frequency of the first regulation circuitry and to generate the output voltage while operating according to the oscillator frequency of the first regulation circuitry, wherein the first charge pump has a plurality of stages and the number of active stages is settable by a first control signal; an internal load having an adjustable value; a slave charge pump section connected to drive the internal load, including: second regulation circuitry connected to receive a voltage driving the internal load and the reference voltage and supply another oscillator signal having a frequency determined from the voltage driving the internal load and the reference voltage; and a second charge pump connected to receive the other oscillator frequency of the second regulation circuitry and to generate the voltage driving the internal load while operating according to the oscillator frequency of the second regulation circuitry, wherein the second charge pump has the same number of stages as the first charge pump and the number of active stages is settable by a second control signal; and control logic connected to the master charge pump section to receive the oscillator frequency of the first regulation circuitry and supply the first control signal, connected to the slave charge pump section to receive the other oscillator frequency of the second regulation circuitry and supply the second control signal, and connected to the internal load to set the adjustable value thereof, wherein the control logic can set the adjustable value of the internal load based upon a comparison of the oscillator frequencies of the first and second regulation circuitries while the first and second charge pumps are operating with the same number of active stages, and can alter the number of active stages in the first charge pump based upon a comparison of the oscillator frequencies of the first and second regulation circuitries while the first and second charge pumps are operating with a different number of active stages.