Talema Blog

A gate drive transformer must reproduce the shape of an input pulse as accurately as possible at its secondary terminals.

A gate drive transformer is a transformer that is optimized for transmitting rectangular electrical pulses with fast rise and fall times to activate or deactivate the switching device. Despite various floating channel MOSFET/IGBT driver ICs being available, a transformer-coupled gate drive is still the better option to use for high power applications.

A gate driver is a power amplifier that accepts a low power input from a controller IC and produces the appropriate high current gate drive for a power device. As requirements for power electronics continue to increase, the design and performance of the gate driver circuitry is becoming ever more important. 

The final article in our SMPS series covers 12 steps for designing switching transformers, along with several other important design considerations.

Phase-shifted full-bridge (PSFB) converters reduce switching loss and increase efficiency by phase-shifting the gate signals between the leading leg and the lagging leg switches without additional circuits. 

Demand for smaller electronics (and thus smaller power supplies) continues to increase. Resonant techniques are used to allow for high-frequency operation in switched-mode power supplies, which in turn allows for smaller components.

The fourth article in our series on switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) covers the main types of symmetrical isolated converter topologies: push-pull, half-bridge, and full-bridge.

The third article in our series on switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) covers the main types of asymmetrical isolated converter topologies: flyback and forward.

In the second article in our SMPS series, we take a closer look at some different SMPS topologies, beginning with non-isolated converters.

A power supply takes an unregulated power and converts it into a stable regulated power. Electronic equipment is generally powered by low voltage DC supplies. The source will be either a battery, a combination of battery and DC/DC converter or a power supply converting AC mains into one or more low voltage DC supplies.