Hi All,
I just wonder if any one give me the Advantages of Switching regulator over LDO (linear regulator) and which are the situations where we can use Switching regulator and the linear regulator. I have some idea on the switching regulator and how it works but i do want to know the exact the differences they use .....
Thanks and regards Srikanth
The advantage of switching regulators is that they don't dissipate much heat - they are usually around 90% efficient, so for every 9 watts you feed into your load, you only dissipate one watt in the switching regulator.
A linear regulator supplying 3.3V from a 10V rail only 33% efficient - you'd have to dissipate at least 6.7 watts in a linear regulator to deliver 3.3 watts to the load in that situation, and you'd need a correspondingly bigger heat sink.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
** Switching regulators reduce the cost of a given voltage regulator esign - sometimes by a large factor !!
There is usually little or no cost advantage at low power levels - ie a few watts.
Sometimes, the high frequency noise associated with fast switching circuits is not acceptable since it will adversely affect the circuit that is being supplied.
It all depends on the specifics of the application.
As always.
..... Phil
In addition to the other responses, switching regulators can be used to boost the input voltage, and also to reverse the polarity so you can get, for example, +5v, +15v, -5v, -15v from a single 6v dc source.
Not that anyone uses 15v anymore.
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