Patent 7498789 was granted and assigned to Realtek on March, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A switching regulator with over-current protection is disclosed. The invention comprises an error amplifier, a pulse width modulator, an over-current protection unit, a gate driver, a tank circuit and a load. According to the invention, the variation of the output current outside a chip is detected and controlled by monitoring the voltage level of the error signal for over-current protection, thus reducing power dissipation caused by an additive resistor and raising efficiency of voltage conversion.