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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Fig. 1. Typical diode full-wave bridge. Full-wave diode bridges are found in many electronic systems (Fig. 1). At typical AC power line voltages, the drop across the diodes has little impact on the ...

Linear Technology has launched a diode bridge controller called LT4321 that replaces two diode bridge rectifiers with low-loss N-channel MOSFET bridges to increase the available power and reduce heat ...

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 ...