Power Supply Designers Turn to Magnetics Designers for Solutions

In many applications the power supply is the last element to be designed in, a task that often falls on the shoulders of engineers with considerable skills but without much experience in the intricacies of switch-mode power. It is not uncommon for engineers faced with the prospect of creating a power supply design to search for an off-the-shelf solution in the form of a reference design. However, a recent Google search of the term "power supply reference design" returned an astonishing 20,900,000 citations!

For many faced with the need to complete the power supply design function, the basic reference design is a source of some comfort but when the specific requirements of the design vary from the reference parameters, it often comes down to understanding the details of the magnetics that makes the difference. In such cases, the quickest path to a satisfactory solution runs straight through the engineering department of the magnetics supplier.