A DC converter is an electronic device which changes a source of direct current (DC) efficiently from one voltage level to some other. They're required as different AC, DC can't just be stepped up or down with a transformer. It is the DC equivalent of a transformer and is a class of power converter. DC converters are significant and vital in handy electronic devices. It is used in cellular phones and laptop computers which are supplied with power from batteries mainly. It has the highest level of standards for reliability, consistency and dependability. They are also used in heavy equipment, transportation, marine, industrial, military COTS, mobile, and other applications.

A DC converter has 2 conversion methods namely electronic and electrochemical. Electronic method has linear regulator which can output only lower voltage from the input. It can't output higher voltage. Switched-mode conversion method is another electronic conversion method which alters one DC voltage level to another, by amassing the input energy for the time being and then liberating that energy to the output at a different voltage. DC converters are nowadays obtainable as integrated circuits and hybrid circuits.

Switched-mode conversions are magnetic where energy is sometimes stored up into and discharged from a magnetic field in an inductor or a transformer. Magnetic DC converters are possibly functioned in two modes, Continuous and Discontinuous. In continuous mode the current fluctuates but not at all runs downward to zero and it is activated at higher power and in discontinuous mode the current fluctuates all through the cycle, running down to nil at or before the end of each cycle and is activated at low power.

The other switched-mode conversion is capacitive. A switched capacitor converter depends on alternately linking capacitors to the input and output in differing topologies. For instance, a switched-capacitor plummeting converter may charge two capacitors in series and then release them in parallel. The topology can be hard switched and resonant.