Current Sense

While often considered a minor overhead function, measuring and controlling the currents in a power supply can easily become a major contributor to the success or failure of a design. To aid in achieving optimum solutions for this task, this topic will review the many strategies for current sensing, describe the options for appropriate sensing devices, and illustrate their application with practical design techniques. The distinction between current control and fault protection will be explored and applied to various power supply topologies with emphasis on performance-defining characteristics.

Practical Switching Power Supply Design

In the age of specialization for electronics engineers, it becomes very difficult to maintain a level of competence within a broad range of electronics fields. Nonetheless, many engineers will be assigned design projects outside their primary field of expertise, among which are switching power supplies. This is done priniarily because the engineer has a unique ability to learn technical subjects relatively quickly. Unfortunately, the literature available today on the subject of switching power supplies tries to convey an understanding through lengthy derivations of applied mathematics. This does not work since only an intuitive sense of the subject matter creates an understanding of the fundamental re 1 at i on sh ips.