SWITCHING POWER SUPPLY DESIGN- A CONCISE PRACTICAL HANDBOOK

There are plenty of excellent books on power supply design. However, most of them are mainly academical, intended for teaching power electronics rather than providing complete, practical, easy-to-use information for the circuit designers. In my more than 35-year carrier of SMPS design, in practice, I still often had to derive equations, search app notes, or resolve circuit operation issues. That’s how I came up with this concise SMPS design handbook, with the intention to provide in a single place all the essential information needed in the SMPS design and analysis. Unlike standard books, it strips away lengthy academic proofs to serve as a fast desktop calculator and reference guide.

I hope this handbook will be as useful to the experienced designer as it will to the recent engineering grad and a student.

Here are the key topics covered:
• Main practically used isolated and non-isolated converter topologies and selection recommendations;
• Active PFC;
• Power transformers and inductors design, analysis and calculation of the losses;
• Feedback control loop design basics;
• Miscellaneous design and analysis topics, such as load transient response analysis, estimation of MOSFET switching time and losses, calculation of output ripple, little known empirical equations for PCB, thermal and magnetics design;
• Practical design tips which you may not find in most textbooks.

The covered converter topologies are:
• Buck
• Fly-Buck™
• Boost
• Buck-boost (non-isolated flyback)
• SEPIC
• Isolated CCM flyback and DCM flyback
• Forward (including active clamp forward)
• Half-bridge
• Phase shifted full bridge with current doubler
• LLC
• CCM and DCM power factor correction boost.

For each covered topology, I provided basic power train diagram, operation principal, basic waveforms, DC transfer function which takes into account power losses, voltage and current stresses in switches and rectifiers, magnetics equations, DC and AC components of the currents in all coils, and often overlooked rms currents in input and output capacitors. The calculations are done for worth case input voltage – something that is not always intuitive and what most books won't do. For example, magnetizing inductance in a CCM flyback transformer has to be calculated at high line, while in DCM – at low line.

This handbook may speed up your design by saving time that would otherwise be spent on deriving equations or searching the literature, not to mention on re-spinning the board because of improperly selected magnetics or underrated components. See a review of the book on a reputable power electronic portal. You can download a free pdf sample chapter on flyback design to preview what's inside. If you find it useful, get the complete handbook. You will have a choice between a printed version and Kindle Edition instant download (note, you don't need an actual Kindle device to read it- you can download there a free reader for your PC or a tablet). And if after reading the book you'll have comments, suggestions, or found an error, feel free to get in touch.

The book was updated on July 4th 2026. Among other things I've added equations of the step load transient response vs. phase margin, updated feedback loop design, active PFC chapter and added an example of feedback loop calculation.

Note this handbook is not for learning power electronics from scratch. It does not provide ready to go schematics either. It is for those who understand electronic circuits and need a quick reference and practical design equations, or who wish to learn power supply design without breaking the bank. You will not have to spend $50-$150 for this book as you would for the textbooks. If nevertheless you are looking for something to learn power electronics "ab initio", see a list of some other useful power supply design books.