Using synchronous rectification for medium voltage applications

Synchronous rectification has been used for low voltage applications from long time ago. MOSFET technology for such low voltages has been incredibly improved during the last years. Furthermore, this improvement has also been very significant in other voltage ranges. This paper explores the possibility of using synchronous rectification for higher output voltages, such as 12 V, 48 V, or 100 V. Regarding the conduction losses, commercial devices available today may allow using synchronous rectification for these output voltages up to quite high power levels. However, as the voltage rating increases, the switching capability decreases, especially as far as the body diode is concerned. Hence, switching losses make the solution worse than the conventional diode scheme for output voltages higher than 24 V.