SWCS138F June 2017 – October 2024 TPS650864
PRODUCTION DATA
Ceramic capacitors with low ESR values are recommended because they provide the lowest output voltage ripple. The output capacitor requires either an X7R or X5R rating. Y5V and Z5U capacitors, aside from the wide variation in capacitance over temperature, become resistive at high frequencies.
At light load currents, the converter operates in PFM mode and the output voltage ripple is dependent on the output-capacitor value and the PFM peak inductor current. Higher output-capacitor values minimize the voltage ripple in PFM mode. To achieve specified regulation performance and low output voltage ripple, the DC-bias characteristic of ceramic capacitors must be considered. The effective capacitance of ceramic capacitors drops with increasing DC-bias voltage.
For the output capacitors of the BUCK converters, TI recommends placing small ceramic capacitors between the inductor and load with many vias to the PGND plane. This solution typically provides the smallest and lowest-cost solution available.
The minimum output capacitance recommended is 22 µF for stability. Equation 7 and Equation 8 can be used to estimate the required output capacitance for a given load transient. Note that VIN will be different for the converters and that the switching frequency can be estimated using Section 6.15. Equation 9 can be neglected for converters as there is no on time extension and the VIN - VOUT term is typically smaller.