Voltage regulator circuit having output terminal with limited overshoot and method of driving the voltage regulator circuit

摘要

A voltage regulator circuit comprises a reference voltage circuit for generating a reference voltage, an error amplifying circuit for receiving the reference voltage from the reference voltage circuit and comparing the reference voltage with a given voltage resulting from dividing the output voltage of an output terminal by a pair of resistors connected in series, and an output transistor portion having two or more switchable transistors different in driving capability. A switching circuit drives a selected one of the switchable transistors in accordance with a result of the comparison by the error amplifying circuit to thereby limit overshoot of the output voltage.