SIMPLIS is routinely used to determine the minimum number of output capacitors required to meet high di/dt step load requirements. Kevin Covi at IBM has put together a very good design example of how SIMPLIS can be used in this application.

Download this example circuit

As output currents go higher and DC-DC converters get smaller, it is increasingly expensive to use hardware measurements as the primary means of detecting design errors. In fact, it is becoming more and more difficult to physically measure high speed transients without introducing unwanted parasitics. In these cases simulation can produce more meaningful results than measurement.

Again in this example we see the power of the SIMPLIS Periodic Operating Point (POP) analysis. In order to measure the step load or step line response of a switching power supply, we want to reference the measurement to a known steady-state condition. SIMPLIS is able to quickly find the Periodic Operating Point of such systems without having to perform a very long transient analysis to get to the initial steady-state measurement condition.