Switching power supplies and high speed converters
Embedded engineers are being asked to design custom power supplies that conserve power, in the interest of environmental protection. Another reason is to reduce operating cost and capital investment. At the same time, there is a call to improve circuit density so the electronic system can be fit into smaller form factors and are able to operate in tough conditions. But there is a problem.
If such high power solutions are built, they may not be able to remove excess heat. But there is a solution. What if you connect a high power digital converter to a DC to DC convertor? This will allow you to bring down system power, without affecting system’s performance. Catalog power supplies may not suffice for such a combination. Only a custom power supply can help.
DC to DC convertors are more efficient than low dropout regulators. The drawback is, the former is said to be too noisy to power high speed analog-to-digital convertors. This noise comes from two sources- supply ripple and magnetic coupling. But this is a minor problem. You can reduce the noise by designing the board layout carefully. This will prevent the magnetic field from coupling into the critical signals. So it all depends on the board layout.
