A PWM Phase-Shift Circuit using an RC Delay for Multiple LED Driver ICs

This paper proposes a PWM phase-shift circuit to make that the LED lighting system distributes the channel currents evenly for any number of LED strings by generating evenly phase-shifted PWM signals for multiple LED driver ICs. The evenly distributed channel currents reduce the peak current, the decoupling capacitor size, and EMI noise. The PWM phase-shift circuit makes an arbitrary degree of PWM phase-shift by using a resistor and a capacitor. It measures the RC delay once. It reduces the number of external resistors and capacitors by providing zero and 180 degree phase-shift modes requiring no resistor and capacitor. An LED driver IC with the PWM phase-shift circuit was fabricated with a $0.35{\mu}m$ BCDMOS process. The PWM phase-shift circuit receives a PWM signal of 50 Hz~20 kHz at $f_{CLK}=450kHz$ and it generates a $0{\sim}360^{\circ}$ phase-shifted PWM signal with $R=0{\sim}1.1M{\Omega}$ at C=1 nF and $f_{PWM}=1kHz$. The measured phase errors are 1.74~3.94% due to parasitic capacitances.