From Concept to Prototype: The Tools of Power-Supply Design (Download)
Almost all electronic circuits require a power supply, making power-supply design a fundamental skill for most design engineers. As switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) grow in complexity, an entire tool chain has evolved over time to simplify the design process. These tools generally fall into five categories: power system designers, power-supply calculation tools, digital power-supply setting tools, circuit simulation tools, and hardware evaluation tools.
Together, these tools help guide engineers through the entire design process, from plotting a system’s power-management architecture all the way to evaluating performance in hardware. Each tool serves a specific purpose, providing valuable insights at different stages. By leveraging these capabilities, engineers can build better power supplies and validate them faster. The following sections examine each tool and its role in the power-supply design workflow.
