Comparative Workbench Study about MTBF for PoL Buck-Converters: Asynchronous vs. Synchronous

The advantages and disadvantages of the two types of buck converters are well known. Considering that the latter has prevailed in electronic practice, when it comes to PoL converters, the problem arises of investigating which of the two is more reliable (comparing them keeping the equivalent footprint, volumetric power density per square inch, and with equal electrical parameters). The paper systematically and rigorously addresses the problem of the reliability of both type of converters using the capture of the temperature of the devices in the IR and based on it calculating the MTBF using the latest international standard, namely IEC 61709 (released 2017). The components’ environmental conditions were defined by a standard buck converter. The results were compared by taking account of component’s temperature and application of specific concepts like references conditions and operating conditions.