State of the Art in DC-to-DC Converters

The switching regulator is a power supply in which the output voltage is regulated by ON and OFF processes of a power semiconductor element. This regulator has been used widely in almost all electronic equipment because of its small size and low power dissipation. However, switching regulators in use now do not always seem to be compatible with highly integrated electronic devices, as it is very difficult to apply IC techniques to such regulators. Even if the latest electronic techniques are used, switching regulators are still too large, too complicated and not always sufficiently reliable. In order to reduce the size of such regulators, the switching frequency should be made as high as possible. This means that the switching loss of the semiconductor and the core loss of the transformer and reactor should be low. The effective use of magnetic components will provide the solution for raising frequencies as well as making switching regulators more simple and reliable. In this paper, we describe the state of the art of switching regulators, and future trends in applications of magnetic components.