Upcoming Trade Shows CHINA HI-TECH FAIR 2008 Location: Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center Date: 12-17 October 2008 Booth Number: 2C52 Contact : Mr. Gordon Chen
Power supplies are sometimes considered trivial designs problems, often relegated as first projects for engineers joining industry, usually with disastrous results.
These disastrous results include schedule slips, cost overruns, and excessive field failures, with associated warranty costs. The root of the problem is usually underestimating the complexity of power supply design, especially switching-mode power supplies.
The perception that power supply design is trivial dates from the era when power supplies were usually a transformer-rectifier set and a dissipative series or shunt regulator. The perception was probably not true then and is certainly not true now -- now that most power supplies are of the switching-mode variety.
Because this perception led to inexperienced designers being assigned to the power supply, power supply related problems became severe in the 1970-80 decade. The Navy claimed that if power supplies just met their specifications there would be a 20% improvement in fleet readiness. They dictated that the procurement agency had to investigate if less than 10% of a project development budget was devoted to the power supply development -- an unprecedented action. Projects on an 18 month schedule sat on the shipping dock for another 18 months waiting for a working power supply.
