Patent ID: 8908395

Claim:
A power converter, comprising: an energy transfer element coupled between an input and an output of the power converter; a switch coupled to the energy transfer element to regulate a transfer of energy from the input to the output of the power converter; and a control circuit coupled to the switch to control switching of the switch, wherein the control circuit includes: a drive signal generator coupled to generate a drive signal to control switching of the switch to regulate the output in response to an energy requirement of one or more loads to be coupled to the output; and an unregulated dormant mode control circuit coupled to render dormant the drive signal generator thereby ceasing the regulation of the output by the drive signal generator when the energy requirement of the one or more loads falls below a threshold for more than a first period of time, the drive signal generator coupled to be unresponsive to changes in the energy requirements of the one or more loads when dormant, the unregulated dormant mode control circuit coupled to power up the drive signal generator after a second period of time has elapsed, the drive signal generator coupled to again be responsive to changes in the energy requirement of the one or more loads after the second period of time has elapsed.