This invention pertains to switching power converters. A specific example of a power converter is a DC-DC power supply that draws 100 watts of power from a 48 volt DC source and converts it to a 5 volt DC output to drive logic circuitry. The nominal values and ranges of the input and output voltages, as well as the maximum power handling capability of the converter, depend on the application.
It is common today for switching power supplies to have a switching frequency of 100 kHz or higher. Such a high switching frequency permits the capacitors, inductors, and transformers in the converter to be physically small. The reduction in the overall volume of the converter that results is desirable to the users of such supplies.
Another important attribute of a power supply is its efficiency. The higher the efficiency, the less heat that is dissipated within the supply, and the less design effort, volume, weight, and cost that must be devoted to remove this heat. A higher efficiency is therefore also desirable to the users of these supplies.
A significant fraction of the energy dissipated in a power supply is due to the on-state (or conduction) loss of the diodes used, particularly if the load and/or source voltages are low (e.g. 3.3, 5, or 12 volts). In order to reduce this conduction loss, the diodes are sometimes replaced with transistors whose on-state voltages are much smaller. These transistors, called synchronous rectifiers, are typically power MOSFETs for converters switching in the 100 kHz and higher range.
The use of transistors as synchronous rectifiers in high switching frequency converters presents several technical challenges. One is the need to provide properly timed drives to the control terminals of these transistors. This task is made more complicated when the converter provides electrical isolation between its input and output because the synchronous rectifier drives are then isolated from the drives of the main, primary side transistors. Another challenge is the need to minimize losses during the switch transitions of the synchronous rectifiers. An important portion of these switching losses is due to the need to charge and discharge the parasitic capacitances of the transistors, the parasitic inductances of interconnections, and the leakage inductance of transformer windings.