Self-scaled voltage booster

摘要

Various technologies described herein pertain to automatically adjusting the strength of a voltage booster of an image sensor. A self-scaled voltage booster includes a regulator, a controller, and two or more charge pumps that can be selectively enabled and disabled by the controller. The controller generates controller signals for the charge pumps based on a duty cycle of a regulator signal generated by the regulator. Moreover, the controller can maintain the controller signals without modification for at least a predetermined minimum period of time after a prior modification of at least one of the controller signals. Further, the controller can include a duty cycle and delay module (or a plurality of duty cycle and delay modules) that detects the duty cycle of the regulator signal and maintains the controller signals without modification for at least the predetermined minimum period of time.

主权项

1. A self-scaled voltage booster of an imaging system on chip, the self-scaled voltage booster includes an output node, the self-scaled voltage booster comprising:
a first charge pump that comprises a first input terminal and a first output terminal, wherein the first output terminal is coupled with the output node; a second charge pump that comprises a second input terminal and a second output terminal, wherein the second output terminal is coupled with the output node; a regulator that comprises a third input terminal and a third output terminal, wherein the third input terminal is coupled with the output node, and wherein the regulator is configured to generate a regulator signal; and a controller configured to generate a first controller signal provided to the first charge pump and a second controller signal provided to the second charge pump, the controller further comprises:
a fourth input terminal coupled with the third output terminal of the regulator;a fourth output terminal coupled with the first input terminal of the first charge pump;a fifth output terminal coupled with the second input terminal of the second charge pump; anda duty cycle and delay module configured to manage the first controller signal and the second controller signal based on a duty cycle of the regulator signal, wherein the duty cycle and delay module is further configured to maintain the first controller signal and the second controller signal without modification for at least a predetermined minimum period of time.