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I have an RC circuit connected to a switch node as a snubber. I am facing difficulties determining the required power rating for the resistor. I have looked at this and this, however, it remains unclear to me.

The switching has a frequency of 115 kHz, duty cycle 15%, and amplitude of 90 V.

The RC circuit has a 10 Ω and a 330 pF.

To my understanding after reading the other posts, I believe these statements are true:

  1. Since the time constant is very small, 3.3 ns, the capacitor will be fully charged and discharged once per cycle. 15% on-time of 115 kHz lasts for 1.3 us, which is much greater than 16.5 ns (5*time constant).
  2. The energy dissipated by the resistor is the energy stored in the capacitor, which is (C*V^2)/2 or 1.34 uJ. For each cycle, the capacitor is charged once and discharged once, resulting in 2x 1.34 uJ = 2.68 uJ.
  3. The average power dissipated by the resistor is 2.68 uJ x 115 kHz = 0.3 W.

Therefore I need to pick a resistor with at least 0.3 W rating. However, right now I am using a 0603 resistor rated for 0.1 W and everything runs fine, no magic smoke or burned resistor. Am I missing something here?

I cannot tell if the resistor is hot because other components add heat to the PCB; I am not sure if the resistor is hot because of its dissipated power or because of the surrounding components.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ You don't talk about what's being snubbed or the larger circuit within which this is placed. So the only thing I have to go on is that you directly apply an AC voltage source to the RC. If that's it, then the capacitor dominates the impedance, yielding about 15 mA RMS. So I figure on the order of 2 mW into the resistor. Way below your 0603 resistor capacity. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 2, 2023 at 21:27

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The impedance of the capacitor is just \$\frac1{2\pi\,f\,C}\approx 4.194\:\text{k}\Omega\$. Clearly, that's dominant. (Besides, the resistor is orthogonal. So won't affect this figure much, at all.) The peak current then works out to \$\frac{90\:\text{V}}{4.194\:\text{k}\Omega}\approx 21.46\:\text{mA}\$ or \$15.175\:\text{mA}_\text{RMS}\$.

By why believe that?

To work out the current in the capacitor, solve the KCL:

$$\begin{align*} \frac{V_{_\text{C}}}{R}+C\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}V_{_\text{C}}&=\frac{V_p\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)}{R} \\\\ \frac{V_{_\text{C}}}{R\,C}+\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}V_{_\text{C}}&=\frac{V_p\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)}{R\,C} \\\\ \left[\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}+\frac{1}{R\,C}\right]V_{_\text{C}}&=\frac{V_p}{R\,C}\cdot\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right) \\\\ \left[\frac{\text{d}^2}{\text{d}t^2}+\omega_{_0}^2\right]\left[\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}+\frac{1}{R\,C}\right]V_{_\text{C}}&=0 \end{align*}$$

The solution to the above homogeneous equation is:

$$\begin{align*}V_{_\text{C}}&=A_0\exp\left(-\frac1{R\,C}\cdot t\right)+A_1\cos\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)+A_2\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right) \\\\ &=\frac{V_p\cdot \omega_{_0}\cdot R\,C}{1+\left(\omega_{_0}\cdot R\,C\right)^2}\left[\exp\left(-\frac1{R\,C}\cdot t\right)-\cos\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)\right]+\frac{V_p}{1+\left(\omega_{_0}\cdot R\,C\right)^2}\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right) \end{align*}$$

(The solution for \$A_0\$, \$A_1\$, and \$A_2\$ comes from further analysis that I've skipped providing. If you sincerely care and want to see how that is also developed, I can add it.)

In your case, the term \$\omega_{_0}\cdot R\,C\$ is small -- about 0.00239. Even multiplied by \$V_p\$ it only reaches about 0.2. And when squared it doesn't even come close to 1, so \$1+\left(\omega_{_0}\cdot R\,C\right)^2=1.00000569\$.

As \$t\to\infty\$, the exponential part disappears and the voltage across the capacitor will be:

$$\begin{align*}V_{_\text{C}} &=V_p\cdot\left[\frac{1}{1.00000569}\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)-\frac{1}{419.383}\cos\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)\right] \end{align*}$$

So the current through the capacitor will be:

$$\begin{align*}I_{_\text{C}} &=21.460\:\text{mA}\cdot\cos\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)+51.171\:\mu\text{A}\cdot\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right) \end{align*}$$

These two terms are orthogonal to each other, so the peak can be taken to be simply \$21.460\:\text{mA}\$. This peak occurs twice per cycle. But it is still going to be an RMS current of about \$15.175\:\text{mA}\$.

(All of this was much, much easier to work out by just assuming that the capacitor determined the current, ignoring the resistor, and getting to the exact same place using its impedance calculation that I used at the outset. The reason I also added the long path above is to firmly show the nuanced details in the equations, should you care to ask yourself questions about what happens when you make changes and ask different questions. You have enough here to ask any question you want, now.)

Of course, \$I_{_\text{R}}=I_{_\text{C}}\$ so the power in the resistor will be \$I_{_\text{C}}^2\cdot R\$ or, in this case, about \$2.3\:\text{mW}\$.

I've no idea where you came up with the requirement that "The energy dissipated by the resistor is the energy stored in the capacitor." It doesn't make any sense to say that because then the resistor value itself doesn't seem to matter at all. (Even assuming you limit that statement to only when your \$5\tau\$ condition was met.) So it should not even pass the sniff test.

As you can see from the above, the resistor value does in fact actually matter. If you made it \$10\times\$ larger, the RMS current would only slightly drop to about \$15.166\:\text{mA}_\text{RMS}\$ but the resistor would be \$10\times\$ larger, so the power dissipated would be close to \$10\times\$ more.

Here's an LTspice run to confirm:

enter image description here

Suppose we change \$R\$ so that it is \$4.7\:\text{k}\Omega\$ and closer to the impedance of \$C\$ at this frequency. The resulting current is:

$$\begin{align*}I_{_\text{C}} &=9.513\:\text{mA}\cdot\cos\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)+10.661\:\text{mA}\cdot\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right) \end{align*}$$

These are orthogonal again. But now the actual computation is needed to work out the peak current. So \$\sqrt{\left(9.513\:\text{mA}\right)^2+\left(10.661\:\text{mA}\right)^2}\approx 14.288\:\text{mA}\$ and we should expect that as a peak value. The RMS should then be \$10.1031\:\text{mA}_\text{RMS}\$ and we'd estimate the power in the resistor to be \$479.7\:\text{mW}\$.

Here's LTspice's report:

enter image description here

Same result!

Using the impedances, instead of all that mathy stuff, we'd compute that the total impedance is \$\sqrt{\left(4.7\:\text{k}\Omega\right)^2+\left(4.194\:\text{k}\Omega\right)^2}\approx 6.299\:\text{k}\Omega\$ and from that the fact that the current peak should be \$\frac{90\:\text{V}}{6.299\:\text{k}\Omega}\approx 14.288\:\text{mA}\$. That's the same as before.

It all works out the same, either way. One method provides the instantaneous results. The other, the average (for power.)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ the signal is a square wave with Vmin = 0Vdc and Vmax = 90Vdc. Is this still true? \$\endgroup\$
    – HV16
    Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 16:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ @HV16 No, it's no longer true. Worse, you need to then define the exact shape of the `square wave'. There is no such thing as a perfect square wave. If perfect it would have frequencies that rise towards infinity without limit. The analysis process would change depending upon the Fourier transform of your source wave shape. But the process is similar. Instead of \$\frac{V_p}{R\,C}\cdot\sin\left(\omega_{_0}\,t\right)\$ on the right side of the starting equation, you'd need to replace that with the new equivalent. An infinite number of annihilators may also be required for a perfect square wave. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 16:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @HV16 Power in the resistor could be very much higher as a result. And here I mean higher than what you calculated. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 17:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @HV16 You could work out that the current pulse would be roughly triangular, requiring \$5\tau\$ of time on the x-axis and starting at a peak of \$18\:\text{A}\$. This would occur twice per cycle. The triangle is actually an RC decay, so you'd need to adjust down somewhat the value you'd get assuming a triangle, though. But the power could be nearing 3 to 4 watts depending on just how square the wave is. Certainly it could go above 2 watts. The shape of the wave matters. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Oct 3, 2023 at 17:26

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