
Chapter 7
Conditional stability is said to occur if the phase gets rather too close to the −180° danger
level at some frequency. Though oscillations do not normally occur at this point, simply
because the gain is high (crossover is not taking place at this location), under large-signal
disturbances, the gain of the converter can suddenly fall momentarily toward 0 dB, thus
increasing the chance of instability. For example, if there is a very large change in line
and load, the error amplifier output may “rail,” that is, reach a value close to its internal
supply rails. Its output transistors may then saturate, taking a comparatively long time to
recover ...