Customer Reviews

Switch-Mode Power Supplies Spice Simulations and Practical Designs

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Christophe Basso worked very hard giving years of his life to produce the best Switch-Mode Power Supply book available, by far. I have a large collection of books on SMPS and although many are very good books, they are not nearly as complete or practical as Basso's book. He derives all his equations and then shows many real world example designs from start to finish. In my opinion and the opinion of many power electronics professionals and power electronics college students, the averaged switch model is the easiest to create and most intuitive to understand and use. Basso has digested the best information from the best references and then creatively enhanced many models and invented new SPICE models/sub-circuits you need for large and small signal analysis and simulations with the SPICE of your choice. His knowledge of creating analog behavioral models (ABM) that perform just like the real components or circuit functions, is amazing. He created ABM PWMs from individual ABM components. Everything he creates, he verifies. You buy this book at a bargain price and get a CD with all the models/sub-circuits you need to check your existing designs and start new designs with the highest confidence. Once you look at his ABMs, you will want to create some of your own because it is so much fun. In a short time, I've used his models/sub-circuits and his techniques with PSPICE to identify lack of or no phase margin in Switch-Mode Power Supplies for a huge corporation. I have many more power supplies to analyze/simulate and several new ones to design.

I've worked as a power electronics engineer for many years and I'm so thankful to Christophe Basso for working so hard and smart to produce the best Switch-Mode Power Supply book ever written. Very thorough and very practical. Get this book and apply Basso's knowledge, techniques, and SPICE models/sub-circuits to your designs and you will never have another unstable Switch-Mode or Linear Power Supply.

Once in a while a book comes along that covers a subject in such detail and yet is chocked with examples that are easy to prove and use by students and designers in the field as this one. It is evident that Mr. Basso went to great lengths to make sure that users of different spice software platforms were included by supplying a CD with models and demos for all the major platforms. I don't know of another offering that deals with closing the feedback loop in the detail as this book does. I think any serious graduate program should consider including this book as a text. Money and time well spent; it is my second reference for serious SMPS work.

Charles Denton
Custom Engineering

I have been getting into SMPS design for a couple of years, and it seems that certain things are mentioned, but not really explained. I suppose you can get the information by searching though endless papers, but how does this help you when you have to still get that supply designed to schedule? That's what is exceptional about this book. It provided the information that helped answer the questions that I kept having. For example, how can you characterize the leakage inductance of a transformer? How do you know that you are using the TL431 correctly? What do you do with that right hand plane zero? What is the contribution of the opto-coupler to the response of the supply? If you find yourself asking questions like these, this is the book for you. Using SPICE as a tool, not as the solution, the author explains these things and more in an easy to read style. This book will provide you with a great set of tools that makes designing a switch mode power supply very straight forward. Mr. Basso explains the different toplogies, how they are related to each other, as well as the deficiencies. I believe that by studying the information in this book, the reader will be able to develop the technical skill and competency needed to develop reliable, stable power supplies. I have been able to see opportunities for performance improvement, shorter design cycles as well as increased reliability for the supplies that I design. As you read through it, I think you to will agree that this is a great reference to have on your bookshelf!

This book is far more detailed than its predecessor and as the author has promised, it took care the majority of complaints. It is difficult to write any book about this subject that would satisfy everybody. You have to look at it with an open mind. It is not meant as a replacement for academia, it is meant to be a practical design guide for circuit simulations as the title suggests. I am happy with the increased content and I believe that anybody who has analog design basics but not very strong simulation skills will definitely benefit from reading the book and learning a number of very useful simulation tricks as I had benefited from the book's predecessor too. Highly recommended both for entry and medium skill level readers. It can also serve as a library of simulation guide for the well educated in this subject. Do not expect this book to show you how to design a switching power supply, you get the practical aspects of how to from the Pressman books. The purpose of this book is to teach you how to simulate switching power supplies using the various versions of SPICE which it does very well. In addition it has a nice summary of academic introductions to various switching power supply modeling techniques and guides you through how various well known individuals had advanced simulation models.

I have read Christophe's insightful contributions to the power supply design community for several years. This book represents a very large amount of work done by him in his own lab. It clarifies and illustrates by example not only how to simulate power supply designs, but has many practical design ideas as well. I have also found Christophe to be responsive to my email inquiries, requesting his opinion on several design questions I have been faced with. I salute his efforts and highly recommend this volume as an excellent resource for the power supply designer.

Barry Zitting
Principal Analog Engineer
International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC)

Mr. Basso has done a wonderful job in writting this book. Many times to get all the import information on the design of Switch mode power supplies one needs to read numerous articles/books. Mr. Basso has managed to gather all important information and put it in one book. The book has all the relevant equations showing all derivations. It also has numerous design examples step by step. Mr. Basso uses SPICE or the many versions of it as a tool to prove out the design. A CDROM comes with the book which inlcudes library SPICE files of completed designs along with subckts so the reader can learn to use the SPICE tools. Very good book and my main book for designing Switch mode power supplies.

Basso has provided the practicing engineer a quality book filled with analytical and practical notes and equations. He provides derivations for the non-isolated DC DC converters which are the building blocks of most power electronic bricks in my area of expertise. I strongly recommend contacting Basso for his additional collection of SPICE circuits that are beyond the basic book price. The author also responds to e-mail questions concerning the book with a timely response. Well done Christophe!

Each simulation problem is well resolved with examples and a brief of theory is also included in each. Very good for Spice users but not to much useful for others simulation package users.

I picked this book up to refresh my decades dormant SMPS design skills. The book exceeded my expectations ... not only in it's clarity in theory and application, but that it also brings together many technique's and approaches championed by others (Ridley, Venable ... ). On any design, I like to build my own spreadsheets and spice models to validate the key requirements for that design, but I want to eventually be be able to apply it all to future designs. From the text in the book to the plethora of files on the CD (lot's of simulator demos), one can tailor their own collection of files that can be used for years to come.

Great book, extremely thorough, well written, with lots of simulation waveforms
that provide great insight into the circuit analyzed. One can tell that this book
is the product of years of great work.