Buck Converters for Power Over Ethernet

A buck converter is a power efficient voltage step-down converter that changes a higher voltage to a lower voltage. Whereas a linear regulator can achieve the same purpose, regulators can waste more energy via conversion of excess energy to heat. For this reason, a buck DC/DC converter is the preferred choice for power-efficient designs. A DC/DC boost converter, also known as a step-up converter, is a semiconductor device or electrical circuit that has an output DC voltage that is greater than the DC input voltage.