Micropower Power Supply Beats Off-The-Shelf Solutions

Designers of high-sensitivity, low-noise preamplifiers recognize the benefits of galvanic isolation to reduce noise. Besides the noise benefits of isolation, some preamps have further requirements, such as the ability to float at a large dc offset voltage. Accommodating this requirement with off-the-shelf solutions may result in high cost and the addition of large components.

Designers can craft a high-isolation micropower dc-dc converter using a telecom transformer. The design is extremely low in cost, and it requires very little board area.