Presents a discussion of troubleshooting switching power supplies. This book provides coverage of AC/DC and DC/DC power supplies. It offers bench evaluation of semiconductor ICs used in power conversion - describing standard and unusual techniques mastered by the author, while testing similar chips at National Semiconductor.
Power supply design is all about detail - a large part of that detail lies in the practical domain, largely because of the typically small number of microseconds of switching periods involved, and the even smaller tens of nanoseconds of switch transition times - all these, in effect accentuating various "second-order" effects, that eventually end up playing prime havoc with "normal" expectations of how the circuit should behave. So not unsurprisingly, even after reading several books, most readers still find themselves no closer to the ultimate goal of designing an actual power supply. This book presents practical knowledge the author acquired, while working "in the trenches" for several years in major engineering companies scattered across several continents.