US Patent Issued to Amber Semiconductor on Nov. 3 for "FET-based AC-to-DC converter with negative cycle gate pre-charge" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,785,376, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Amber Semiconductor Inc. (Dublin, Calif.).

"FET-based AC-to-DC converter with negative cycle gate pre-charge" was invented by Mark Telefus (Orinda, Calif.), Suhail Zain (San Ramon, Calif.) and Steve Dreyer (Los Altos, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A power converter circuit comprises a solid-state switch connected between first and second nodes, a capacitor coupled between the second node and a ground reference node, and a control system which monitors a voltage level across the capacitor and (i) turns on the solid-state switch during a positive half-cycle of an AC power waveform coupled t...