In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement such as an electronic device that converts an analog input voltage or current to a digital number representing the magnitude of the voltage or current. Typically the digital output is a two's complement binary number that is proportional to the input, but there are other possibilities.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM), also known as pulse-duration modulation (PDM) or pulse-length modulation (PLM), is any method of representing a signal as a rectangular wave with a varying duty cycle.
A power inverter, inverter, or invertor is a power electronic device or circuitry that changes direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The resulting AC frequency obtained depends on the particular device employed. Inverters do the opposite of rectifiers which were originally large electromechanical devices converting AC to DC.
A switched-mode power supply (SMPS), also called switching-mode power supply, switch-mode power supply, switched power supply, or simply switcher, is an electronic power supply that incorporates a switching regulator to convert electrical power efficiently.
A DC-to-DC converter is an electronic circuit or electromechanical device that converts a source of direct current (DC) from one voltage level to another. It is a type of electric power converter. Power levels range from very low to very high.
Power electronics is the application of electronics to the control and conversion of electric power.
In electronics, a chopper circuit is any of numerous types of electronic switching devices and circuits used in power control and signal applications. A chopper is a device that converts fixed DC input to a variable DC output voltage directly. Essentially, a chopper is an electronic switch that is used to interrupt one signal under the control of another.
A variable-frequency drive is a type of AC motor drive that controls speed and torque by varying the frequency of the input electricity. Depending on its topology, it controls the associated voltage or current variation.
A class-D amplifier or switching amplifier is an electronic amplifier in which the amplifying devices operate as electronic switches, and not as linear gain devices as in other amplifiers. They operate by rapidly switching back and forth between the supply rails, using pulse-width modulation, pulse-density modulation, or related techniques to produce a pulse train output. A simple low-pass filter may be used to attenuate their high-frequency content to provide analog output current and voltage. Little energy is dissipated in the amplifying transistors because they are always either fully on or fully off, so efficiency can exceed 90%.
A boost converter or step-up converter is a DC-to-DC converter that increases voltage, while decreasing current, from its input (supply) to its output (load).
A buck converter or step-down converter is a DC-to-DC converter which decreases voltage, while increasing current, from its input (supply) to its output (load). It is a class of switched-mode power supply. Switching converters provide much greater power efficiency as DC-to-DC converters than linear regulators, which are simpler circuits that dissipate power as heat, but do not step up output current. The efficiency of buck converters can be very high, often over 90%, making them useful for tasks such as converting a computer's main supply voltage, which is usually 12 V, down to lower voltages needed by USB, DRAM and the CPU, which are usually 5, 3.3 or 1.8 V.
The flyback converter is used in both AC/DC, and DC/DC conversion with galvanic isolation between the input and any outputs. The flyback converter is a buck-boost converter with the inductor split to form a transformer, so that the voltage ratios are multiplied with an additional advantage of isolation.
The single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) is a type of DC/DC converter that allows the electrical potential (voltage) at its output to be greater than, less than, or equal to that at its input. The output of the SEPIC is controlled by the duty cycle of the control switch (S1).
An analog signal to discrete time interval converter (ASDTIC) is a specialized kind of an analog-to-digital converter, which converts the analog input signal to time intervals between pulses.
A solid-state AC-to-AC converter converts an AC waveform to another AC waveform, where the output voltage and frequency can be set arbitrarily.
In electronics, power amplifier classes are letter symbols applied to different power amplifier types. The class gives a broad indication of an amplifier's characteristics and performance. The first three classes are related to the time period that the active amplifier device is passing current, expressed as a fraction of the period of a signal waveform applied to the input. This metric is known as conduction angle (θ). A class A amplifier is conducting through all the period of the signal (θ=360°); Class B only for one-half the input period (θ=180°), class C for much less than half the input period (θ<180°). Class D amplifiers operate their output device in a switching manner; the fraction of the time that the device is conducting may be adjusted so a pulse-width modulation output can be obtained from the stage.
Switching Noise Jitter (SNJ) is the aggregation of variability of noise events in the time-domain on the supply bias of an electronic system, in particular with a voltage regulated supply bias incorporated with closed-loop (feedback) control, for instance, SMPS. SNJ is measurable using real-time spectral histogram analysis and expressed as a rate of occurrence in percentage. The existence of SNJ was firstly demonstrated and termed by TransSiP Inc in 2016 and 2017 at the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), and reviewed with experts at Tektronix prior to be featured as a case study published by Tektronix. The discovery of SNJ was also featured in multiple articles published by Planet Analog magazine and EDN Network. Difficult to filter using conventional LC networks due to variability in both time and frequency domains, SNJ can introduce random errors in analog to digital conversion, affecting both data integrity and system performance in digital communications and location-based services
Switching Control Techniques address electromagnetic interference (EMI) mitigation on power electronics (PE). The design of power electronics involves overcoming three key challenges:
- power losses
- EMI
- harmonics
This glossary of power electronics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to power electronics in general and power electronic capacitors in particular. For more definitions in electric engineering, see Glossary of electrical and electronics engineering. For terms related to engineering in general, see Glossary of engineering.
Random pulse-width modulation (RPWM) is a modulation technique introduced for mitigating electromagnetic interference (EMI) of power converters by spreading the energy of the noise signal over a wider bandwidth, so that there are no significant peaks of the noise. This is achieved by randomly varying the main parameters of the pulse-width modulation signal.
