Powering Milliwatts to Megawatts Switchedmode power converters are used to interface equipments and consumer electronic devices over a wide range of power levels. The switch technology of any power converter is a signature of its power rating. The article discusses different power electronic switch technologies used in modern power supply implementation and evaluates their impact in the system design. From the design prospective, power loss is more important than efficiency. It can be established that as power level of converter goes up, it is indispensable to have higher efficiency due to thermal design considerations. A trend between the switching frequency and its efficiency with respect to the power rating of the converter has been inculcated in the article.

OnChip Power Stage and Gate Driver for Fast Switching Applications The demand for lowcost integrated circuits for automotive applications is increasing, while their cost must remain low to keep the product competitive. In this scenario, a highspeed monolithic integrated circuit to control a load current is here proposed. It is composed by a level shifter and a gate driver for a high power switch in a DCDC Buck converter to be realized in a low cost technology. For chip area reduction, an nchannel vertical power transistor is chosen as power transistor. High switching frequency (up to 1MHz) can be used to reduce external components size. The device is optimized to achieve 94.4% efficiency. Implementation concept, schematic and layout will be shown.