8.2.2.6 Input Capacitor

The TPS54360 requires a high quality ceramic type X5R or X7R input decoupling capacitor with at least 3 μF of effective capacitance. Some applications will benefit from additional bulk capacitance. The effective capacitance includes any loss of capacitance due to dc bias effects. The voltage rating of the input capacitor must be greater than the maximum input voltage. The capacitor must also have a ripple current rating greater than the maximum input current ripple of the TPS54360. The input ripple current can be calculated using Equation 38.

The value of a ceramic capacitor varies significantly with temperature and the dc bias applied to the capacitor. The capacitance variations due to temperature can be minimized by selecting a dielectric material that is more stable over temperature. X5R and X7R ceramic dielectrics are usually selected for switching regulator capacitors because they have a high capacitance to volume ratio and are fairly stable over temperature. The input capacitor must also be selected with consideration for the dc bias. The effective value of a capacitor decreases as the dc bias across a capacitor increases.

For this example design, a ceramic capacitor with at least a 60 V voltage rating is required to support the maximum input voltage. Common standard ceramic capacitor voltage ratings include 4 V, 6.3 V, 10 V, 16 V, 25 V, 50 V or 100 V. For this example, two 2.2 μF, 100 V capacitors in parallel are used. Table 2 shows several choices of high voltage capacitors.

The input capacitance value determines the input ripple voltage of the regulator. The input voltage ripple can be calculated using Equation 39. Using the design example values, I_OUT = 3.5 A, C_IN = 4.4 μF, ƒsw = 600 kHz, yields an input voltage ripple of 331 mV and a rms input ripple current of 1.72 A.

Equation 38.

Equation 39.