Switcher Power Loss
Efficiency is a misleading number for comparison of switching regulators. The efficiency number can be manipulated by the input and output voltage, while power loss is more tightly tied to the actual circuit. This video explains why.
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Large, series connected strings of batteries are commonly used in electric vehicles, backup power systems and a wide variety energy storage applications. Maximizing the lifetime and ensuring safe usage of such battery stacks requires accurate meas...
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The meaning of the term “high power LED” is rapidly evolving. Although a 350mA LED could easily earn the stamp of “high power” a few years ago, now, 5A to 40A LEDs and laser diodes are used in the DLP projector, surgical equipment, stage lighting, au...
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Pulsed loading conditions and abnormal disturbances within the electrical systems found in industrial, vehicle, avionic and other harsh environments can induce wildly varying voltage transients (surges) on what is nominally a 24VDC or 36VDC distribut...
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Stability of precision electronic circuits is often dominated by the stability of the voltage reference. Most electronic systems rely on one or more voltage references to ensure that measurements or performance meets specifications, especially over ...
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In today’s modern electronic systems, the need for power conversion circuits that can do more then simply convert one voltage to another is growing. Some systems require a constant current, constant voltage output, while others may require a limit o...
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Protecting sensitive electronic circuitry from voltage transients is an essential part of any system be it automotive, industrial, avionics or even battery-powered consumer applications. Linear Technology offers a wide variety of solutions for these ...
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The non-synchronous flyback topology is widely used in isolated power supplies ranging from sub watt power levels to tens of watts. With more green-mode standards emerging around the world, improving light load efficiency and reducing no-load input s...
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16kW-hr battery packs made from lithium ion cells are powering electric vehicles and storing grid energy. Measurement ICs like the LTC®6804 are used to extend the life and ensure the safety of the pack. The accuracy of the measurement IC can influenc...
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Bandwidth has become more precious than gold. As we push more and more data wirelessly through our smartphones, tablets, GPS, and video players, the spectrum has become more crowded. Increasingly complex and efficient modulation schemes allow us to...
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Single Phase Step-Down DC/DC Controller with Digital Power System Management and Input Current SenseThe digital power supply market has achieved rapid progress in the recent years. Easy configuration, accurate telemetry, convenient fault analysis and reliability are the trends for the modern digital power supply, which are all provided by Linear’s ...
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Linear Technology’s LTM®4620 uses a proprietary lead frame design to package high power regulators into a very small form factor with effective thermal conduction through the top and bottom of the µmodule product. The device can be connected in paral...
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The zero-IF receiver architecture gains popularity in wireless applications because of its suitability to demodulate very wideband RF signals. This capability is important in digital pre-distortion (DPD) transmitters. Realization of sufficient dyna...
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Due to the high cost and inflexibility of isolated DC/DC converter modules, many designers are choosing to implement a discrete design that is better matched to their application. In particular, the forward converter with active clamp reset has been ...
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The LT®8610 step-down regulator integrates key high performance features in one compact IC. It offers synchronous rectification, for efficiencies up to 96%. The low quiescent current of 2.5µA extends battery life and saves extra circuitry. High speed...
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LEDs are becoming both more popular and more powerful. Strings of 1A, 2A, 3A and higher current LEDs found in vehicles, billboards, industrial lighting, and many more applications need to be driven both accurately and efficiently from DC/DC converter...
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Successive Approximation Register Analog-to-Digital Converters (SAR ADCs) are key components in instrumentation, industrial control, and test equipment applications. The accuracy, noise and speed of the SAR ADC often determine the overall system per...
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Precision matched resistors are used in a wide range of precision instrumentation applications including measurement and data acquisition, wireless RF, networking, automated test, medical, industrial controls and military equipment. The LT®5400 is...
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Efficiency is a misleading number for comparison of switching regulators. The efficiency number can be manipulated by the input and output voltage, while power loss is more tightly tied to the actual circuit. This video explains why.
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The standard design of a general purpose switching step-down regulator relies on a control loop that requires the user to attenuate the output signal to compare to a voltage reference. By thinking outside the box and designing a regulator that relie...
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Linear Technology’s LT®3798 isolated controller with active power factor correction (PFC) is specifically designed for regulating bus voltages or driving constant current applications over a wide input range of 10V to 480V. It is ideal for constant v...
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Portable electronic devices, powered by batteries, require battery chargers. In higher powered applications, efficiency and thermal management requirements lead to solutions using DC/DC converters. DC/DC converter controllers do not have the accuracy...
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Thermal management is a critical part of system design. FPGAs and processors often require heat sinks and fans, to the extent that a failure (stopped fan or obstructed heat sink) would cause damage. These devices often have a pin connected to an on-d...
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The LT®3799/-1 isolated LED controller with active power factor correction (PFC) is specifically designed for driving LEDs over a wide input range of 24V to 480V+. It is ideal for LED applications requiring 4W to over 100W of LED power. The LT3799/-1...
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In modern RF communication systems, signal integrity is of prime importance. To meet the system requirements, amplifiers, mixers and modulators must have a low noise figure and low distortion products. Additionally, as system designers work to squeez...
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Battery life is paramount in modern battery-powered systems. Portable applications, such as remote sensors, require voltage regulators which have low current standby states and also able to provide bursts of high power. Linear Technology’s LT®3970...
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Current information in electric motors and solenoids provides important insight into power output and system health. Electric motor and solenoid driving circuits and the devices themselves create a challenging environment for operation of current mon...
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Modern electronics systems require high performance point of load power supplies with advanced and intelligent power management. Linear Technology’s LTC®3880 combines a best in class analog switching regulator controller with precise mixed signal dat...
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Linear regulators are commonly employed to post-regulate switching regulator outputs. Benefits include improved stability, accuracy, transient response and lowered output impedance. Ideally, these performance gains would be accompanied by markedly re...
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Stacks of lithium ion cells are used in new hybrid electric vehicles and uninterruptible power supplies. Maximizing the life and the safety of these high voltage, high power battery packs depends on sophisticated electronics. Linear Technology’s LTC®...
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The LT3080 is a new architecture for linear regulators. It provides better regulation, a simple output adjustment with a single resistor where the output can be adjusted down to zero. Also, this architecture allows easy paralleling of regulators for ...
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When Linear Technology provides a customer with a high speed ADC demo board we also provide PScope, the software to evaluate the demo board. PScope is a simple software package that can collect, and display data from high speed ADC demo boards. It ...
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Modern FPGA and Servers operating at low voltages are sensitive to subtle supply drops. The droop may result from a combination of excess regulator noise, insufficient bandwidth in the supply regulator, excess ESR & ESL in the decoupling components, ...
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Most system designers use voltage references in their circuits. While many will agree that the performance may ultimately be limited by the reference, they are often unclear as to why. With so many reference products available, designers often choo...
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The LTC2978 features enable power supply supervision, monitoring, sequencing and trimming with unmatched accuracy. These features combined with our easy to use GUI, assist the power supply designer in defining and implementing complex power managemen...
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Compensating for unknown wire drops without remote sensing wires is now possible. The LT4180 continuously modulates the power supply output current to interrogate the line drop. Then the output is increased to match the drop providing up to a 50 to 1...
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The LTC2753, a new 18-bit DAC, requires careful measurement techniques to verify performance. Performance verification at DC is relatively straightforward using precision Dvms. Dynamic conditions considerably complicate measurement. In particular, de...
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There is an increasing market for low power electronic devices located in remote locations, away from the power grid. Ideally, the power for these devices should be generated on-site using renewable energy. Perhaps the most visible form of renewable ...
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High-powered boost converters have historically suffered from the shortcoming that a DC path exists between the input and output nodes. Fault conditions, such as output shorts, could easily damage or destroy key components in this path. Other topol...
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General timing functions such as clocks, monostable one-shots, delays and pulse width modulators are ubiquitous. There is a wide range of functional requirements and an equally wide range of end use applications. Presently, general purpose timer chip...
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Energy harvesting applications are finding their way into many remote monitoring applications where utility power is not available. New developments in ultralow power microcontrollers with their high level of integration are enabling monitoring syste...
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RF mixers are critical components that make up the modern transceivers used in 3G and 4G wireless infrastructure, communication gears and military systems. The receivers’ robustness depends on their dynamic range performance. The LTC®5540/41/42/43 ...
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Boost power conversion is important function in many industrial, automotive and commercial applications. Higher power level customers have to deal with issues of high ripple currents, high power dissipation and higher EMI levels. Linear Technology’s...
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