JAJSAB5F December 2006 – November 2016 LP38853
PRODUCTION DATA.
When using a ceramic capacitor for COUT, the typical ESR value may be too small to provide any meaningful positive phase compensation, FZ, to offset the internal negative phase shifts in the gain loop (see Figure 23 and Equation 4).
A capacitor placed across the gain resistor R1 provides additional phase margin to improve load transient response of the device. This capacitor, CFF, in parallel with R1, forms a zero in the loop response given by Equation 5:
For optimum load transient response select CFF so the zero frequency, FZ, falls between 10 kHz and 15 kHz as shown in Equation 6:
The phase lead provided by CFF diminishes as the DC gain approaches unity, or VOUT approaches VADJ. This is because CFF also forms a pole with a frequency shown in Equation 7:
NOTE
It is important to note that at higher output voltages, where R1 is much larger than R2, the pole and zero are far apart in frequency. At lower output voltages the frequency of the pole and the zero move closer together. The phase lead provided from CFF diminishes quickly as the output voltage is reduced, and has no effect when VOUT = VADJ. For this reason, relying on this compensation technique alone is adequate only for higher output voltages. For the LP38853, the practical minimum VOUT is 0.8 V when a ceramic capacitor is used for COUT.