A circuit and a related method to sense the inductor current of CD/DC buck converters
have been achieved. The inductor current is sensed by generation of a voltage drop
across a fully integrated sense resistor. The voltage drop is proportional to the
inductor current in the pass device by supplying a fraction of the inductor current
out of a source-follower, which matches to the pass device. The source of said
source-follower is connected to a sense-resistor that is connected to the same
supply as the pass device. The current, which is needed to generate the voltage
drop, is fed back into the inductor current minimizing therefore the efficiency
loss. Mirroring, amplification and offset correction of the voltage drop across
the sense-resistor is performed by using a single matching pair of source-follower,
which is supplied by a current tracking the internal reference voltage and the
process variations of the resistors.