Selection guides, application notes and design checks for rectifiers, Schottky diodes, TVS protection, MOSFETs, SiC and IGBTs — written for engineers and sourcing teams.
Switch on a capacitor-charging supply and the first few milliseconds carry a surge that dwarfs the steady-state current: a rectifier fed into a discharged capacitor can briefly push ten times its rated average, and that first charge pulse is exactly what the surge rating on the diode datasheet is about. The IFSM number — forward … Read more
A rectifier datasheet is a dense page of numbers, and most engineers read it in the wrong order — jumping to the current rating and ignoring everything else until a failure forces a return visit. The numbers are easier to remember when you frame them as the datasheet’s answer to three questions: how much voltage … Read more
Relay circuits fail in the same surprising way over and over: the coil is fine, the switch is fine, everything reads correct on the bench — and the relay or the things around it keep dying. The usual culprit is the inductive kickback from the coil, and the usual fix is a flyback diode. But … Read more
Every ESD diode on a signal line adds capacitance to that line, and on a high-speed interface the added capacitance is not a footnote — it is a budget that directly closes the receiver’s eye. A data line protected by a general-purpose ESD diode can lose signal integrity even though the protection works perfectly, because … Read more
Protection components are the least exciting parts of a board and the ones most often chosen by habit. A designer reaches for a TVS because the last board had one, or a Zener because a tutorial mentioned it, and both can be wrong on a 12 V rail — not because the parts are bad … Read more
The most confusing failures in a rectifier supply are the ones that look like a capacitor problem and turn out to be a bridge problem, or the reverse. A sagging DC output, a hot filter capacitor, a fuse that keeps blowing — each symptom can be produced by the bridge, the capacitor, or the two … Read more
The choice between a unidirectional and a bidirectional TVS is not a preference — it is decided by the protection zone the device guards. A TVS clamped line-to-ground on a rail that only ever swings positive can be unidirectional, with one junction and a single polarity to mount; a TVS guarding a differential line that … Read more
A MOSFET and a BJT can both switch the same load in many circuits, and choosing between them comes down to what the rest of the circuit asks. The BJT is a current-controlled valve: it turns on with base current, and its on-state drop stays relatively fixed. The MOSFET is a voltage-controlled gate: it turns … Read more
A three-phase bridge rectifier is the front end of most industrial motor drives, and its design is owned by three numbers: the six-pulse ripple frequency, the output-voltage factor, and the line current the diodes must carry. Behind the arithmetic sits the harsh grid — voltage dips, harmonics, and surge events that punish a bridge sized … Read more
Welding and induction heating are the harshest IGBT duties outside the motor drive, because both throw high-current pulses at the device faster and harder than a steady load ever does. A welder draws a current spike at every arc strike; an induction heater switches at high frequency against an inductive coil. Both punish the IGBT … Read more
The four-diode bridge is the default rectifier topology for a reason, but it is not the only arrangement in the family. Center-tapped full-wave circuits, voltage-doubler stages, and common-cathode diode pairs all appear in real power supplies, and each one trades diodes, transformer windings, and stress in a different way. Understanding the family — what the … Read more
A bridge rectifier inside a power supply fails in one of a handful of ways, and the evidence is usually visible before a single meter lead touches the board. Burn patterns around the leads, a body split by thermal stress, a rail that sags after being fine, or smoke that only appears under load — … Read more
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