Patent ID: 8587272

Claim:
A thermal compensation circuit for controlling duty cycles of a multi-phased DC/DC converter, the converter comprising a plurality of phased portions, each phased portion comprising a switch controlled to have a duty cycle, an on-time of the switch supplying a current through an inductor, the on-time being controlled by at least an output voltage feedback signal, the thermal compensation circuit comprising: a duty-cycle adjustment circuit for each phased portion, the duty-cycle adjustment circuit sensing a temperature of each phased portion and adjusting the duty-cycle of each phased portion such that temperature differences between the plurality of phased portions are reduced, wherein the duty-cycle adjustment circuit comprises: a temperature sensor circuit for each phased portion, the temperature sensor circuit measuring a temperature proximate to its associated phased portion and generating a separate first signal for each phased portion corresponding to the temperature of that phased portion; an averaging circuit for generating a second signal corresponding to an average of temperatures measured at the plurality of phased portions; a temperature difference circuit for each phased portion generating a third signal for each phased portion corresponding to a difference between the first signal and the second signal; and wherein the duty-cycle adjustment circuit for each phased portion adjusts the duty-cycle of each phased portion based on the third signal to reduce a magnitude of the third signal for each phased portion such that temperatures of the plurality of phased portions are substantially equal to the average of temperatures measured at the plurality of phased portions.