T. Iijima’s scientific contributions

This paper describes a simple, inexpensive technique for intentionally broadening and flattening the spectrum of a DC-DC converter (switching regulator) to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI). This noise spectrum broadening technique involves intentionally introducing pseudorandom dithering of control clock timing, which can be achieved by adding simple digital circuitry. This technique can significantly reduce noise power spectrum peaks at the DC-DC converter output. For our test case circuit, measurements showed that noise power was reduced by 5.7 dBm at the main peak, by 15.6 dBm at the second peak and by 12.8 dBm at the third peak. This simple, inexpensive technique can be applied to most conventional switching regulators by adding simple digital circuitry, and without any modification of the design of other parts.