US Patent 7528589 Step-up DC/DC converter and electronic appliance therewith

A step-up DC/DC converter uses N-channel field-effect transistors as both an output transistor and a synchronous-rectification transistor and includes a first driver making the gate voltage of the output transistor pulsate between a ground voltage and an input voltage and a second driver making the gate voltage of the synchronous-rectification transistor pulsate between a switching voltage and a bootstrap voltage equal to the switching voltage plus at least the ON threshold voltage of the synchronous-rectification transistor. With this configuration, the converter operates with improved power efficiency and performs synchronous rectification unhindered even with a small input-output voltage difference.