Low voltage power electronics

This paper summarizes some of the current solutions to fulfil the requirements of the new low voltage power systems. On one hand, microelectronics evolution demands lower supply voltage. On the other hand, the portability of the new communication systems demands lighter and smaller power electronics. The improvement of the performance of low power and low output voltage converters is carried out in this paper. Topics like power density, efficiency, thermal management, battery life, hard and soft switching, magnetics integration, synchronous rectification and power factor correction affect each other in these kinds of converters. Although all the relations among the previous terms are difficult to assess, this paper reviews some aspects of the current situation.