Unraveling Feedback Translations

Power supplies and other analog systems rely on feedback translations for control and stability. With sufficient loop gain, these translations are largely independent of loop gain and loop dynamics. Complex feedback systems, however, often lose the phase and gain margin they need for stable operation when loop gain is high. Unfortunately, understanding how these feedback systems behave and translate signals when loop gain is not high is largely algebraic and abstract. This talk introduces a new way of viewing and analyzing these feedback systems that is more intuitive and insightful. The presentation uses this method to show how looped amplifiers translate signals across frequency when forward gain and feedback translations alternate dominance. Understanding, innovating, and designing feedback and mixed translations this way is more straightforward.