A high efficiency switching power supply including an analog front end, a
battery control circuitry portion, a display and equalization circuitry
portion, field effect transistor (FET) drivers, an isolated power supply
transformer circuitry (and three associated sets of tap circuitry),
microcontroller circuitry, oscillator circuitry, overcharge protection
circuitry, programmable logic circuitry portion, and a zero current
predictor. Overbiasing of the FET power supply switches, and/or other
various circuitry features disclosed herein, helps achieve electrical
power efficiencies of preferably greater than 95%, even more preferably
greater than 98% and even more preferably greater than 99%. Preferably,
the switching power supply has one or more of the following: (1) high
electrical power efficiency (>95%. >98%, >99%); (2) overbiasing
of a gate of a power supply switch; (3) a power supply switch with a low
gate capacitance ratio; (4) multiple modes of operation; and (5) current
prediction wherein an inductor voltage is used to control a constant
current capacitor whose voltage indicates the level of current in the
inductor.