SLUSEP2 December 2021 UCC28781
PRODUCTION DATA
As shown in Figure 7-36, after VVDD reaches VVDD(ON), an internal 13-V regulator on the P13 pin should force VP13 back to the regulation level before PWML starts switching. If the recommended P13-pin capacitor (CP13) of 1 µF and the connection to the depletion-mode MOSFET (QS) are in place, the settling time of VP13 to 14 V is much longer than 10 μs with a limited 1.9-mA sink current of the regulator (IP13(START)) to discharge CP13.
The first fault scenario is that if CP13 is too small, or the P13 pin is open, the pin is not able to control QS correctly for the high-voltage sensing function of ZVS control, so no switching action will be performed. When either two situations happen, VP13 settles to 13 V very quickly instead. Therefore, after a 10-μs delay from the instant of VVDD reaching VVDD(ON), UCC28781 checks if VP13 is below 14 V for the pin-fault detection, and then performs one UVLO cycle of VDD directly without switching as the protection response.
The above protection is to prevent the controller from generating PWM signals. However, when the P13 pin is open and disconnected from the QS gate, the source voltage of QS keeps increasing. To protect the P13-pin open event, a small Zener diode (DP13) between QS gate to AGND should be used to limit the QS source voltage. DP13 should be higher than VVDD(ON) , so as to prevent interference with normal VDD startup. A 20-V Zener diode is recommended.
The second fault scenario is the over-voltage condition of P13 pin after the converter starts switching. When the switch-node voltage (VSW) rises with a high dV/dt condition, there is a charge current flowing through the junction capacitance of QS, and part of the current can charge up CP13. If the overshoot is too large, the voltage on the SWS pin also increases due to the nature of depletion-mode MOSFET operation. UCC28781 detects the overshoot event on P13 pin with a 15-V over-voltage threshold cycle-by-cycle. When VP13 is higher than 15 V for three consecutive PWML pulses, the P13 over-voltage protection is triggered which performs one UVLO cycle of VDD.
The third fault scenario is an P13 pin short event at the beginning of VDD startup, and QS is unable to charge up the VDD capacitor to VDD(ON), so there is no chance to enable the controller.