by Franco Musiari [ DESIGN IN ] 
Born around the year 2000 they already are at the second or the third generation and still represent the highest efficiency. The miniaturization of the systems is a trend followed in all the electronics systems and particularly in the portables ones. In many of them the dimension and the weight of the power supplies are a dominant parameter of the whole system and more and more switching power supplies manufacturers (SMPS – switching mode power supply) define the road-map to increase the density power of their devices.