Switch Mode Power Supply

Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS). This has gained enormous penetration of charger markets in the past 15 years, and is now the predominant mode of operation in the telecom’s and computer markets. It is lightweight in comparison to Thyristor systems.

It consists of fully controllable switching power devices like MOSFET’s and IGBT’s, and can thus operate at frequencies much higher than the grid frequency. These devices can be fully turned on and off at any instant in time allowing for precise control of the charger output.

A typical SMPS consists of a front end AC-DC rectifier to generate an unregulated DC input voltage, a high frequency chopper that chops the input DC voltage and an output filtering stage to generate a smooth, very low ripple output voltage.