
AS2842/3/4/5
Current Mode Controller
ASTEC Semiconductor
56
operating under very light load can experience
instabilities caused by the low amplitude of the
current sense ramp waveform. In such a case,
any noise on the waveform can be sufficient to
trip the comparator resulting in random and pre-
mature pulse termination. The addition of a small
amount of artificial ramp (slope compensation)
can eliminate such problems without drastically
affecting the overall performance of the system.
2.3 Circuit layout and other considerations
The electronic noise generated by any switch-
mode power supply can cause severe stability
problems if the circuit is not layed-out (wired)
properly. A few simple layout practices will help
to minimize noise problems.
When building prototype breadboards, never use
plug-in protoboards or wire wrap construction.
For best results, do all breadboarding on double
sided PCB using ground plane techniques. Keep
all traces and lead lengths to a minimum. Avoid
large loops and keep the area enclosed within
any loops to a minimum. Use common point
grounding techniques and separate the power
ground traces from the signal ground traces.
Locate the control IC and circuitry away from
switching devices and magnetics. Also, the tim-
ing capacitor’s ground connection must be right
at pin 5 as shown in Figure 15. These grounding
and wiring techniques are very important be-
cause the resistance and inductance of the traces
are significant enough to generate noise glitches
which can disrupt the normal operation of the IC.
Also, to provide a low impedance path for high
frequency noise, V
CC
and V
REF
should be
decoupled to IC ground with 0.1
μ
F capacitors.
Additional decoupling in other sensitive areas
may also be necessary. It is very important to
locate the decoupling capacitors as close as
possible to the circuit being decoupled.