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Power Tips: How to use Nyquist plots to assess system stability
A Bode plot is a very popular way to determine a dynamic system’s stability. However, there are times, when a Bode plot is not a straightforward stability indicator.Figure 1 shows a Bode plot of TI’s...
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Make your PSE system smarter and more efficient
Power over Ethernet (PoE) enables Ethernet cables to carry electrical power as well as data. For example, old Internet protocol (IP) phones usually needed a DC power supply and Ethernet cable to...
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Four-switch buck-boost layout tip No. 1: identifying the critical parts for...
Layout is very critical to the successful operation of a buck-boost converter. A good layout begins by identifying these critical components, as shown in Figure 1:High di/dt loops or hot loops.High...
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Four-switch buck-boost layout tip No. 2: optimizing hot loops in the power stage
Once you have identified the critical parts of your DC/DC converter design, your next task is to minimize any sources of noise and unwanted parasitics. Minimizing hot loops is a major first step in...
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Four-switch buck-boost layout tip No. 3: separating differential sense lines...
In my last blog, I provided tips for optimizing hot loops in a buck-boost converter. I decided to add this tip as a separate topic after finding it in almost all of the layouts I reviewed late last...
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LDO basics: power supply rejection ratio
One of the most touted benefits of low dropout linear regulators (LDOs) is their ability to attenuate voltage ripple generated by switched-mode power supplies. This is especially important for...
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Power Tips: PWM-controlled output adjustment for USB Type-C™ applications
Consumer applications often require power supplies to support an adjustable output voltage for different operating conditions such as USB Type-C™. This demand creates the need for a simple and...
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Tips and tricks for optimizing your voltage supervisor
Voltage supervisors have provided analog voltage monitoring to digital circuits for decades. Texas Instruments released the original TL7705 in 1983; it consumed 1.8mA, came in a plastic dual-inline...
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Innovate, design and learn with TI power experts at APEC
Reviewing this year’s program of events for APEC in Tampa, Florida, on March 26-30 provoked a few nostalgic memories. Back in 1994, I attended my first APEC conference at Disney World in Orlando,...
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LDO basics: dropout
The quintessential characteristic of a low-dropout (LDO) linear voltage regulator has to be dropout. After all, that is the source of its name and acronym.At the most basic level, dropout describes the...
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Selecting a bidirectional converter control scheme
The 48V-12V dual-battery power system is becoming popular for mild hybrid electric vehicles. The vehicle’s dynamic operating conditions may require the transfer of electric power as high as 10kW back...
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Know your gate driver
I hope you’ve had a chance to watch our video series, “Know Your Gate Driver.” Although often overlooked, gate drivers are responsible for a lot of the heavy lifting in systems like power supplies and...
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Rethink compute density with GaN
According to a report published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2016, data centers across the United States consumed a whopping 70 billion kWh of energy in 2014. It comes as no surprise...
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Save PCB space and overcome point-of-load design complexity with PMBus modules
Engineers face many difficult challenges when designing power supplies for industrial and communication systems. A typical system can include one or more field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),...
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How to tame EMI noise in your power-supply design
Let’s say you are designing a buck power supply for a combustion engine application (a lawn mower, chain saw or automobile). For this application, you know you will need to meet a Comité International...
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It's a wrap at APEC – power trends, friends and automobiles
The 2017 Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) did not disappoint. The annual pilgrimage to the premier global event in power electronics was full of ideas, implementations and illuminations. Let...
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Managing power scaling and sequencing the analog way
With the emergence of Internet of Things (IOT) applications, more and more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are being deployed into cloud...
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A handy tool for power-supply designs
Versatility is a good thing. You probably have one of those tools in your toolbox – probably not advertised as such, but something that just ended up being good for everything from prying and bending,...
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The effects of gate-driver strength in synchronous buck converters
The peak voltage at phase node, VPH, in a synchronous buck converter is one of the main specifications to determine converter reliability. Designers usually allow phase-node ringing to be as much as...
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Design advantage of D-CAP control topology
Texas Instruments first implemented the D-CAP™ control topology in 2004 on a double-data-rate (DDR) controller, the TPS51116. TI developed D-CAP technology as a form of current-mode control using the...
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