In this graph, the temperature rise above ambient of a passive diode bridge is compared to that of the LT4320 active bridge for a DC input on similarly sized boards, plotted against the load current on the x-axis. Even at 10A, the MOSFET bridge has a low 16°C temperature rise compared to 84°C on the diode bridge. The 16°C rise is easily dissipated by the PCB without reserving much area for heat sinking. On the other hand, the hot-running diode bridge will raise the ambient temperature of the neighboring circuits, requiring considerable resources to be spent on thermal design.

