Everyone loves a full-wave bridge rectifier, but there’s no denying that they aren’t 100% efficient due to the diode voltage drop. Which isn’t to say that with some effort we cannot create an ideal ...

Linear Technology Corporation announces the availability of a low loss 3-phase ideal diode bridge rectifier reference design, demonstrated on evaluation board DC2465. Conventional 3-phase rectifiers ...

We have all had difficulty testing diodes in-circuit. Most DMM’s have a diode Vf function that measures forward drop, but what is the normal voltage drop? Analog VOM’s attempt to measure resistance of ...

Superconductivity is an advantageous property observed in some materials, which entails an electrical resistance of zero at extremely low temperatures. Superconductors, materials that exhibit this ...

With Linear Technology’s LT4320 ideal-diode bridge controller, power supply designers can replace each of the four diodes in a conventional full-wave bridge rectifier with a low-loss N-channel MOSFET.

A major cause of losses in a conventional power supply using a 50/60-Hz transformer is the bridge rectifier. This article shows how to build a “greener” rectifier, substantially reducing losses by ...

Beware! The behavior of a part outside its operating specifications is not always predictable. Beware! The behavior of a part outside its operating specifications is not always predictable. In my ...

Alpha and Omega Semiconductor has announced a family of active diodes which can reduce the 1.2V forward drop of 600V bridge rectifiers. “Both products are self-powered from the AC line and do not ...

Engineers often encounter difficulty when attempting to accurately rectify low-amplitude AC signals using standard diode-based circuits. The primary issue arises from the diode’s forward voltage drop, ...

Welcome back to this week’s installment of Scope Noob where I’m sharing my experiences learning to use my first oscilloscope. Last week I started out measuring mains frequency using an AC-AC wall wart ...

Linear Technology has released a controller chip that turns four n-mosfets into an active bridge rectifier and cut the expected voltage drop of a bridge from 1.2V to under 100mV, dramatically cutting ...