Abstract: The present invention provides a heat dissipater for use on a circuit board. The invention includes a circuit board having components on at least one side, a rigid plate having thermal conductive properties, and a spring clip that couples said rigid plate to said circuit board and provides a retaining force against the rigid plate. Both the rigid plate and spring clip provide thermal paths to ambient for the circuit board, and in one embodiment, a heat sink or cold plate may be coupled to the rigid plate. Thermal interface material may be filled in between the rigid plate, circuit board and spring clip to provide an efficient thermal path to ambient. The rigid plate, spring clip, and thermal interface material may be electrically insulated.

Abstract: The adapter couples a power module to a circuit board. An adapter embodying the present invention can be configured to allow the connection of any power module regardless of pin out to any circuit board. Signal modifying circuitry can also be added to the adapter to enhance or simply modify the signal to the end user's circuit board. The modifying circuitry can act on either the input to the adapter or the output from the adapter. At least one conductive path couples the input interconnects and the output interconnects.

Abstract: This improved surface mount power supply can withstand the rigors of the manufacturing process and still create sturdy and robust connection to a user's circuit card. The open frame power module uses a U-shaped or T-shaped interconnect rather than a spherical interconnect. In one embodiment, the U-shaped interconnect can have a hole through one surface to allow the wicking of solder. The wicked solder provides a sturdier connection that is more likely to survive subsequent reflow processes. The power module is also built on a thicker FR4 board. The thicker board is less likely to warp during subsequent heating.

Abstract: The invention presents a highly efficient, tightly regulated DC-to-DC converter which can be used in various applications, especially multiple output converters. The converter uses a buck converter to produce an intermediate bus voltage. A current-fed double ended circuit, such as bridge or push-pull circuit, couples to the buck converter to provide power to outputs. The double ended circuit operates at about 50% duty. The secondary output filter inductor is not required. With 50% duty cycle operation, the secondary rectifiers are easily controlled by either a self-driven or an external driven circuit. The secondary windings can also be stacked up to simplify the transformer design. In addition, bias voltages needed for control circuitry can also be obtained by adding extra windings to the power transformer and extra rectifier devices.

Abstract: An apparatus, system, and method to offer either independent output adjustment or tracking output voltages in a post regulated converter is provided. A new resistor divider and reference structure is introduced, which offers simplicity and low parts count in achieving the two different output voltage adjustment functions. In one embodiment, the voltage regulator includes a plurality of output voltage pins, a plurality of independent trim pins, a tracking trim adjust pin, a plurality of voltage error pins, a reference voltage supply; and a plurality of operational amplifiers. The plurality of output voltage pins are coupled to a first input and an output of the operational amplifiers. The reference voltage supply is coupled a second input of each of the operational amplifiers. The tracking trim adjust pin is coupled to the first input of each of the operational amplifiers.

Abstract: A control scheme for a synchronous rectifier converter that avoids disabling the synchronous rectifiers entirely. Rather than disable the synchronous rectifier altogether to stop the flow of reverse current in light-load, startup, or shutdown conditions, the duty cycle of the synchronous rectifier is modified such that forward current is always allowed to flow through the synchronous rectifier, but the synchronous rectifier is turned off before the reverse current flow reaches a pre-determined level. This is accomplished by operating the converter in a partially synchronous mode of operation during light-load, startup, or shutdown conditions. Whether the circuit is in a light-load, startup, or shutdown condition is determined by a circuit characteristic of the converter that is sensed by the controller, such as average output current. The desired changeover point from fully-synchronous mode to the partially synchronous mode is set to a predetermined level of output current for the converter.

Abstract: A power supply with a protection circuit that protects against over current, short circuit, output overvoltage, and input undervoltage with a minimal number of components. A pulse width modulated power supply has a controller using two operational amplifiers, namely an error amplifier and an overvoltage comparator, which are used to limit the duty cycle of the power supply. When the output voltage differs significantly from a reference, the overvoltage comparator triggers causing the supply to enter hiccup mode wherein it shuts off and automatically restarts, checking to see if the condition which caused shutdown is still present.

Abstract: An architecture for a post regulator control circuit that utilizes an advance trigger signal to trigger the post regulator ramp. This advance trigger signal anticipates the beginning and end of a power cycle, and can be used to drive all of the secondary rectifier switches with optimal timing to minimize both cross conduction and body diode conduction. The architecture can be used to cascade an arbitrary number of post regulators. The present invention provides to the auxiliary outputs the full range of regulation available to the main output even in light load conditions. Rather than sensing the beginning or end of the power cycle, the present invention anticipates the beginning and end of the power cycle using the pulse train generated by the feedback loop for the main output. This allows the circuit to prepare the switches for the beginning of the power cycle and avoids problems encountered with inherent propagation delays in the circuit.