Feature: Rail electronics


Designing with DC-DC converters


By Ann-Marie Bayliss, Senior Product Marketing Manager, and John Quinlan, Strategic Technical Marketing Manager, Murata


M


ost electronic equipment incorporates DC- DC conversion in some form. Te switched-mode


technique is an efficient solution that enables voltage step up and step down, as well as isolation, with small magnetics.


DC to DC conversion has been


a challenge to system and product designers, starting in a major way when Edison lost out to Westinghouse in the ‘War of the currents’ in the late 19th century. Distributing AC at increasing power required increasing voltages to keep currents low and cables of reasonable size, but this could easily be achieved with


transformers. DC could only be stepped up at the time with unwieldy motor- generator sets, so the rest is history: Westinghouse won and AC distribution became the standard for the 20th century. Te last century was also the


beginning of the age of electronics, which overwhelmingly requires DC for its operation, so conversion from the


Figure 1: Buck (left) and boost (right) DC-DC converter 22 March 2023 www.electronicsworld.co.uk


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