Calculating Losses and Junction Temperature for High-Power-Density Switching Converters

Today's silicon fabrication technology has allowed power conversion integrated circuits (ICs) to increase power density by an order of magnitude from the technology that existed just five years ago. Smaller geometries and other power-process improvements have enabled National Semiconductor to create more efficient devices. The company has created a new family of buck, boost, and buck-boost converters, as well as Single-Ended Primary Inductor Converters (SEPICs) in small packages. This white paper provides an overview of these devices, as well as discussions of application circuits and tips that are helpful in using high-density DC-DC monolithic converters.