A switched-capacitor converter has a first and second terminal; a switched-capacitor ladder network having a plurality of serially connected first capacitors defining a plurality of flying capacitor nodes; a plurality of serially connected second capacitors defining a plurality of output capacitor nodes, wherein nodes of the flying capacitor nodes can be connected to nodes of the output capacitor nodes in a plurality of ladder converter configurations to perform a switched-capacitor ladder power conversion; and a switch matrix to connect the first terminal to different flying capacitor nodes and/or to connect any flying capacitor node to any other flying capacitor node or output capacitor node according to different switch configurations. Also, a switched-capacitor converter assembly may have a plurality of serially and/or parallel connected switched-capacitor reconfigurable switched-capacitor ladder converters. Methods for converting an input into an output voltage using a converter and for operating an assembly of converters are also provided.

The present invention provides a frequency-halving latch circuit for deterministic field bus network data forwarding and application thereof. The frequency-halving latch circuit includes a data buffer equipped with two buffer units; a frequency-halving enable latch signal generation module for generating a first frequency-halving latch signal and a second frequency-halving latch signal with opposite levels, and selecting data buffer units of the data buffer based on the first frequency-halving latch signal, the second frequency-halving latch signal and a receiving enable signal; and a shift register including a first trigger and a second trigger which are initialized to opposite output states, the first trigger and the second trigger is connected to realize a shift operation, and data stored in the data buffer units is finally selected and read based on a low order in the shift register composed of the two triggers and a read enable signal. The frequency-halving latch circuit can be applied to a scenario of deterministic field bus network data forwarding as a same-frequency out-of-phase data cross-clock domain circuit, with high resource utilization rate and stability.

Some embodiments may include a nanosecond pulser comprising a plurality of solid state switches; a transformer having a stray inductance, L.sub.s, a stray capacitance, C.sub.s, and a turn ratio n; and a resistor with a resistance, R, in series between the transformer and the switches. In some embodiments, the resonant circuit produces a Q factor according to $Q=\frac{1}{R}\sqrt{\frac{L_s}{C_s}};$
and the nanosecond pulser produces an output voltage V.sub.out from an input voltage V.sub.in, according to V.sub.out=QnV.sub.in.

A system for controlling supply of a device. The device can be a power retention device that requires to be permanently powered. To this end, it can be alternatively powered by a power supply, in a first mode, or by a battery, in a second mode. At least one sensor of the system acquires data related to the battery, such as environmental data, the voltage of the battery or the discharge current of the battery. Based on the data and at least one characteristic curve of the battery, a battery monitoring module is configured to switch between the first and second modes to improve the lifetime of the battery.

A selection circuit architecture makes it possible to perform upward and/or downward transitions in sets of sequences of slow and fast phases so as at the same time to solve the problems of inductive switching noise and the problems of currents in the supply rails. This solution has multiple advantages linked to the ease of implementation and flexibility of configurations that are possible for adapting to the specific constraints when designing the circuit.

An aspect includes an apparatus including a first amplifier; a first field effect transistor (FET) including a first source coupled to an output of the first amplifier, and a first drain for coupling to a first load; and a first gate drive circuit including an input coupled to the output of the first amplifier and an output coupled to a first gate of the first FET. Another aspect includes a method including amplifying a first audio signal using a first audio amplifier to generate a first voltage; generating a first gate voltage based on the first voltage; applying the first gate voltage to a first gate of a first field effect transistor (FET) coupled between the first audio amplifier and a first audio transducer; and applying the first voltage to a first source of the first FET.

A nanosecond pulser is disclosed. In some embodiments, the nanosecond pulser may include one or more switch circuits including one or more solid state switches, a transformer, and an output. In some embodiments, the transformer may include a first transformer core, a first primary winding wound at least partially around a portion of the first transformer core, and a secondary winding wound at least partially around a portion of the first transformer core. In some embodiments, each of the one or more switch circuits are coupled with at least a portion of the first primary winding. In some embodiments, the output may be electrically coupled with the secondary winding and outputs electrical pulses having a peak voltage greater than about 1 kilovolt and a rise time of less than 150 nanoseconds or less than 50 nanoseconds.

An aspect includes an apparatus including a first amplifier; a first field effect transistor (FET) including a first source coupled to an output of the first amplifier, and a first drain for coupling to a first load; and a first gate drive circuit including an input coupled to the output of the first amplifier and an output coupled to a first gate of the first FET. Another aspect includes a method including amplifying a first audio signal using a first audio amplifier to generate a first voltage; generating a first gate voltage based on the first voltage; applying the first gate voltage to a first gate of a first field effect transistor (FET) coupled between the first audio amplifier and a first audio transducer; and applying the first voltage to a first source of the first FET.

Some embodiments may include a nanosecond pulser comprising a plurality of solid state switches; a transformer having a stray inductance, L.sub.s, a stray capacitance, C.sub.s, and a turn ratio n; and a resistor with a resistance, R, in series between the transformer and the switches. In some embodiments, the resonant circuit produces a Q factor according to

[00001]$Q=\frac{1}{R}\sqrt{\frac{L_s}{C_s}},$

and the nanosecond pulser produces an output voltage V.sub.out from an input voltage V.sub.in, according to V.sub.out=QnV.sub.in.

A superconducting DC switch system is provided. The superconducting DC switch system comprises one or more Josephson junctions (JJs), and a magnetic field generator that is configured to switch from inducing a magnetic field in a plane of the one or more JJs, and providing no magnetic field in the plane of the one or more JJs. A DC input signal applied at an input of the one or more JJs is passed through to an output the one or more JJs in the absence of an induced magnetic field, and the DC input signal is substantially suppressed at the output of the one or more JJs in the presence of the magnetic field.