Patent ID: 8058859

Claim:
A voltage regulation system, comprising: a switching regulator configured to convert an input voltage to an output voltage based on a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal; a feedback circuit coupled to the switching regulator, the feedback circuit being configured to generate an error signal corresponding to a difference between the output voltage and a reference voltage; a PWM control circuit configured to provide the PWM signal to the switching regulator, the PWM control circuit including a PWM comparator and an oscillator, wherein the oscillator is configured to generate a clock signal and a ramp signal, the clock signal having a leading edge, a falling edge, and a clock pulse width, the falling edge of the clock signal triggering an ON time of the PWM signal, and wherein the PWM comparator is configured to compare the ramp signal to the error signal and generate an ON time pulse width for the PWM signal; a pulse frequency modulation (PFM) comparator coupled to the PWM control circuit, the PFM comparator being configured to compare the error signal to a PFM threshold voltage and provide an output to the oscillator, wherein based on the output from the PFM comparator, the oscillator is configured to: generate the clock signal with the clock pulse width having a first value when the error signal is not less than the PFM threshold voltage; and generate the clock signal with the clock pulse width having a second value when the error signal is less than the PFM threshold voltage, the second value being greater than the first value.