New family of zero-current-switching PWM converters using a new zero-current-switching PWM auxiliary circuit

A new family of zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) converters using a new ZCS-PWM auxiliary circuit is presented in this paper. The main switch and auxiliary switch operate at ZCS turn-on and turn-off, and the all-passive semiconductor devices in the ZCS-PWM converters operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off. Besides operating at constant frequency and reducing commutation losses, these new converters have no additional current stress and conduction loss in the main switch in comparison to the hard-switching converter counterpart. The PWM switch model and state-space averaging approach is used to estimate and examine the steady-state and dynamic character of the system. The new family of ZCS-PWM converters is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter, rated 1.6 kW and operating at 30 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters.     

Novel zero-current-switching PWM converters

This paper presents a new family of pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converters, featuring soft commutation of the semiconductors at zero current (ZC) in the transistors and zero voltage (ZV) in the rectifiers. Besides operating at constant frequency and with reduced commutation losses, these new converters have output characteristics similar to the hard-switching-PWM counterpart, which means that there is no circulating reactive energy that would cause large conduction losses. The new family of zero-current-switching (ZCS)-PWM converters is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The advantages of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter employing IGBTs, rated at 1.6 kW and operating at 20 kHz, are presented. This new ZCS operation can reduce the average total power dissipation in the semiconductors practically by half, when compared with the hard-switching method. This new ZCS-PWM boost converter is suitable for high-power applications using IGBTs in power-factor correction. The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters     

Novel zero-Voltage-transition PWM DC-DC converters

A new family of zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converters that uses a new ZVS-PWM switch cell is presented in this paper. Except for the auxiliary switch, all active and passive semiconductor devices in the ZVS-PWM converters operate at ZVS turn ON and turn OFF. The auxiliary switch operates at zero-current-switching (ZCS) turns ON and OFF. Besides operating at constant frequency, these new converters have no overvoltage across the switches and no additional current stress on the main switch in comparison to the hard-switching converter counterpart. Auxiliary components rated at very small current are used. The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZVS-PWM boost converter, rated 1 kW, and operating at 80 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters.     

An improved ZCS-PWM commutation cell for IGBT's application

An improved zero-current-switching pulsewidth-modulation (ZCS-PWM) commutation cell is proposed, which is suitable for high-power applications using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as the power switches. It provides ZCS operation for active switches with low-current stress without voltage stress and PWM operating at constant frequency. The main advantage of this cell is a substantial reduction of the resonant current peak through the main switch during the commutation process. Therefore, the RMS current through it is very close to that observed in the hard-switching PWM converters. Also, small ratings auxiliary components can be used. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed ZCS-PWM commutation cell, it was applied to a boost converter. Operating principles, theoretical analysis, design guidelines and a design example are described and verified by experimental results obtained from a prototype operating at 40 kHz, with an input voltage rated at 155 V and 1 kW output power. The measured efficiency of the improved ZCS-PWM boost converter is presented and compared with that of hard-switching boost converter and with some ZCS-PWM boost converters presented in the literature. Finally, this paper presents the application of the proposed soft-switching technique in DC-DC nonisolated power converters     

Novel zero-current-switching (ZCS) PWM switch cell minimizingadditional conduction loss

This paper proposes a new zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth modulation (PWM) switch cell that has no additional conduction loss of the main switch. In this cell, the main switch and the auxiliary switch turn on and turn off under zero-current condition. The diodes commutate softly and the reverse-recovery problems are alleviated. The conduction loss and the current stress of the main switch are minimized, since the resonating current for the soft switching does not flow through the main switch. Based on the proposed ZCS PWM switch cell, a new family of DC-to-DC PWM converters is derived. The new family of ZCS PWM converters is suitable for the high-power applications employing insulated gate bipolar transistors. Among the new family of DC-to-DC PWM converters, a boost converter was taken as an example and has been analyzed. Design guidelines with a design example are described and verified by experimental results from the 2.5 kW prototype boost converter operating at 40 kHz     

A new family of zero-voltage-transition PWM converters with dual active auxiliary circuits

A new family of active auxiliary circuits that allow the power switch in single switch, pulsewidth modulated converters to operate with zero-voltage switching is proposed in this paper. The main feature of an auxiliary circuit belonging to this family is that the auxiliary switch can operate with a zero-current switching turn-on and turn-off without increasing the peak current stresses of the main switch. This is an improvement over previous proposed auxiliary circuits where either the auxiliary switch operates with a hard turn-off or the circuit itself increases the peak stresses of the main switch. In this paper, the fundamental principles behind the proposed family of active auxiliary circuits are explained. Based on these principles, an example auxiliary circuit is systematically derived and presented along with several other auxiliary circuits belonging to the new family. The operation of a boost converter operating with the example auxiliary circuit is discussed in detail, and general guidelines for the design and implementation of auxiliary circuits belonging to the new family are given. The feasibility of the example auxiliary circuit is confirmed by experimental results obtained from a 500-W, 100-kHz boost converter laboratory prototype.     

An improved boost PWM soft-single-switched converter with lowvoltage and current stresses

This paper presents an improved regenerative soft turn-on and turn-off snubber applied to a boost pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converter. The boost soft-single-switched converter proposed, which has only a single active switch, is able to operate with soft switching in a PWM way without high voltage and current stresses. This is achieved by using an auxiliary inductor, which is magnetically coupled with the main inductor of the converter. In order to illustrate the operating principle of this new converter, a detailed study, including simulations as well as experimental results, is carried out. The validity of this new converter is guaranteed by the obtained results     

A novel ZCS-PWM power-factor preregulator with reduced conduction losses

This paper proposes a new single-phase high-power-factor rectifier, which features regulation by conventional pulsewidth modulation (PWM), soft commutation, and instantaneous average line current control. A new zero-current-switching PWM (ZCS-PWM) auxiliary circuit is configured in the presented ZCS-PWM rectifier to perform ZCS in the active switches and zero-voltage switching in the passive switches. Furthermore, soft commutation of the main switch is achieved without additional current stress by the presented ZCS-PWM auxiliary circuit. A significant reduction in the conduction losses is achieved, since the circulating current for the soft switching flows only through the auxiliary circuit and a minimum number of switching devices are involved in the circulating current path and the proposed rectifier uses a single converter instead of the conventional configuration composed of a four-diode front-end rectifier followed by a boost converter. Nine transition states for describing the behavior of the ZCS-PWM rectifier in one switching period are described. The PWM switch model is used to predict the system performance. A prototype rated at 1 kW, operating 50 kHz, with an input ac voltage of 220 V/sub rms/ and an output voltage 400 V/sub dc/ has been implemented in laboratory. An efficiency of 97.3% and power factor over 0.99 has been measured. Analysis, design, and the control circuitry are also presented in this paper.     

A new single-phase ZCS-PWM boost rectifier with high power factor and low conduction losses

This paper proposes a new single-phase high-power-factor rectifier, which features regulation by conventional pulsewidth modulation (PWM), soft commutation, and instantaneous average line current control. A new zero-current switching PWM (ZCS-PWM) auxiliary circuit is configured in the presented ZCS-PWM rectifier to perform ZCS in the active switches and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) in the passive switches. Furthermore, soft commutation of the main switch is achieved without additional current stress by the presented ZCS-PWM auxiliary circuit. A significant reduction in the conduction losses is achieved because of the following reasons: 1) the circulating current for the soft switching flows only through the auxiliary circuit; 2) a minimum number of switching devices are involved in the circulating current path; and 3) the proposed rectifier uses a single converter instead of the conventional configuration composed of a four-diode front-end rectifier followed by a boost converter. Seven transition states for describing the behavior of the ZCS-PWM rectifier in one switching period are described. The PWM-switch model is used to predict the system performance. A prototype rated at 1 kW, operating at 60 kHz, with an input alternating current voltage of 220 V/sub rms/ and an output voltage of 400 V/sub dc/, has been implemented in laboratory. An efficiency of 98.3% and a power factor over 0.99 have been measured. Analysis, design, and the control circuitry are also presented in this paper.     

Novel ZVT-PWM converters with active snubbers

An active snubber cell is proposed to contrive zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) pulsewidth-modulated (ZVT-PWM) converters. Except for the auxiliary switch, all active and passive semiconductor devices in a ZVT-PWM converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn on and turn off. The auxiliary switch operates at ZVS turn off and near zero current-switching (ZCS) turn on. An analytical study on a boost ZVT-PWM converter with the proposed active snubber cell is presented in detail. A 750 W 80 kHz prototype of the boost ZVT-PWM converter has been built in the laboratory to experimentally verify the analysis. Six basic ZVT-PWM converters can be easily created by attaching the proposed active snubber cells to conventional PWM converters. A detailed design procedure of the proposed active snubber cell is also presented in this paper     

A family of high power density unregulated bus converters

This paper begins by reviewing current bus converters and exploring their limitations. Next, a family of inductor-less bus converters is proposed to overcome the limitations. In the new bus converters, magnetizing current is used to achieve zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on for all switches. The resonant concept is used to achieve nearly zero-current-switching (ZCS) turn-off for the primary switches and no body diode loss for the synchronous rectifiers (SRs). Meanwhile, the self-driven method can be easily applied to save drive loss of SRs. Based on these concepts, a full-bridge bus converter is built in the quarter-brick size to verify the analysis. The experimental results indicate that it can achieve 95.5% efficiency at 500-W, 12-V/45-A output. Compared with industry products, this topology can dramatically increase the power density. These concepts are also applied to nonisolated dc/dc converters. As an example, a resonant Buck converter is proposed and experimentally demonstrated.     

Family of Soft-Switching PWM Converters With Current Sharing in Switches

In this paper, a new family of soft-switching pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converters is introduced. In this family of converters, two switches operate out of phase and share the output current while providing soft-switching condition for each other. A buck converter, from this family of converters, is analyzed and its operating modes are discussed. The adoption of regular PWM control circuit to the proposed converters is presented. A prototype converter is implemented and its experimental results are illustrated.     

A soft-single-switched forward converter with low stresses and two derived structures

This paper proposes a soft-single-switched forward converter with low current and voltage stresses and two derived converters. These converters operate with a nondissipative snubber in ZCS mode at turning on and ZVS mode at turning off. The output voltage is controlled by using PWM technique. It is carried out a detailed study, where operating principles and some simulation and experimental results are presented.     

Novel high-power-factor ZCS-PWM preregulators

This paper introduces novel zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) preregulators based on a new soft-commutation cell, suitable for insulated gate bipolar transistor applications. The active switches in these proposed rectifiers turn on in zero current and turn off in zero current-zero voltage. In addition, the diodes turn on in zero voltage and their reverse-recovery effects over the active switches are negligible. Moreover, based on the proposed cell, an entire family of DC-to-DC ZCS-PWM converters can be generated, providing conditions to obtain naturally isolated converters, for example, derived buck-boost, Sepic and Zeta converters. The novel AC-to-DC ZCS-PWM boost and Zeta preregulators are presented in order to verify the operation of this soft-commutation cell. In order to minimize the harmonic contents of the input current, increasing the AC power factor the average-current-mode control is used, obtaining preregulators with AC power factor near unity and high efficiency at wide load range. The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, design example, and experimental results from test units for the novel preregulators are presented. The new boost preregulator was designed to nominal values of 1.6 kW output power, 220 V_rms input voltage, 400 V_dc output voltage, and operating at 20 kHz. The measured efficiency and power factor of the new ZCS-PWM boost preregulator were 96.7% and 0.99, respectively, with an input current total harmonic distortion (THD) equal to 3.42% for an input voltage with THD equal to 1.61%, at rated load     

DC-DC converter: four switches V/sub pk/=V/sub in//2, capacitive turn-off snubbing, ZV turn-on

A new four-switch full-bridge dc-dc converter topology is especially well-suited for power converters operating from high input voltage: it imposes only half of the input voltage across each of the four switches. The two legs of a full-bridge converter are connected in series with each other, across the dc input source, instead of the usual topology in which each leg is connected across the dc source. The topology reduces turn-off switching losses by providing capacitive snubbing of the turn-off voltage transient, and eliminates capacitor-discharge turn-on losses by providing zero-voltage turn-on. (Switching losses are especially important in converters operating at high input voltage because turn-on losses are proportional to the square of the input voltage, and turn-off losses are proportional to the input voltage). The topology is suitable for resonant and nonresonant converters. It adds one bypass capacitor and one commutating inductor to the minimum-topology full-bridge converter (that inductor is already present in many present-day converters, to provide zero-voltage turn-on, or is associated with one or two capacitors to provide resonant operation), and contains a dc-blocking capacitor in series with the output transformer, primary winding, and some nonresonant converters (that capacitor is already present in resonant power converters). The paper gives a theoretical analysis, and experimental data on a 1.5-kW example that was built and tested: 600-Vdc input, 60-Vdc output at up to 25A, and 50-kHz switching frequency. The measured performance agreed well with the theoretical predictions. The measured efficiency was 93.6% at full load, and was a maximum of 95.15% at 44.8% load.     

A new family of isolated converters that uses the magnetizinginductance of the transformer to achieve zero-voltage switching

A new family of isolated, zero voltage switched power converters which utilizes the magnetizing inductance of the transformer to achieve zero voltage turn-on of the primary switches is proposed. By employing saturable inductor(s) on the secondary side, soft turn-off of the output rectifier(s) is obtained with a minimum circulating energy flowing through the power converter. The proposed converters can operate either with a variable or a constant switching frequency. A complete DC analysis and design guidelines for the half-bridge topology are described, and the performance of a 100 W experimental power converter is presented     

A new ZVT-PWM DC-DC converter

In this paper, a new active snubber cell that overcomes most of the drawbacks of the normal "zero voltage transition-pulse width modulation" (ZVT-PWM) converter is proposed to contrive a new family of ZVT-PWM converters. A converter with the proposed snubber cell can also operate at light load conditions. All of the semiconductor devices in this converter are turned on and off under exact or near zero voltage switching (ZVS) and/or zero current switching (ZCS). No additional voltage and current stresses on the main switch and main diode occur. Also, the auxiliary switch and auxiliary diodes are subjected to voltage and current values at allowable levels. Moreover, the converter has a simple structure, low cost, and ease of control. A ZVT-PWM boost converter equipped with the proposed snubber cell is analyzed in detail. The predicted operation principles and theoretical analysis of the presented converter are verified with a prototype of a 2 kW and 50 kHz PWM boost converter with insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). In this study, a design procedure of the proposed active snubber cell is also presented. Additionally, at full output power in the proposed soft switching converter, the main switch loss is about 27% and the total circuit loss is about 36% of that in its counterpart hard switching converter, and so the overall efficiency, which is about 91% in the hard switching case, increases to about 97%     

A true ZCZVT commutation cell for PWM converters

This paper introduces a true zero-current and zero-voltage transition (ZCZVT) commutation cell for DC-DC pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converters operating with an input voltage less than half the output voltage. It provides zero-current switching (ZCS) and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) simultaneously, at both turn on and turn off of the main switch and ZVS for the main diode. The proposed soft-switching technique is suitable for both minority and majority carrier semiconductor devices and can be implemented in several DC-DC PWM converters. The ZCZVT commutation cell is placed out of the power path, and, therefore, there are no voltage stresses on power semiconductor devices. The commutation cell consists of a few auxiliary devices, rated at low power, and it is only activated during the main switch commutations. The ZCZVT commutation cell, applied to a boost converter, has been analyzed theoretically and verified experimentally. A 1 kW boost converter operating at 40 kHz with an efficiency of 97.9% demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed commutation cell     

A novel self-excited forward DC-DC converter withzero-voltage-switched resonant transitions using a saturable core

A novel self-excited forward DC-DC power converter is proposed. The turn-on and turn-off of the switch are zero-voltage-switching with resonant transition. A saturable core is used to achieve the self-excitation and the zero-voltage-switched resonant transition. The voltage waveform across the switch is trapezoidal with sinusoidal transitions, and the current waveform flowing through the switch is quasisquare. The switching losses, the conduction losses and the stresses of the switch are significantly reduced in the proposed power converter. The output voltage is determined by the ON duty ratio of the switch as in a PWM converter. Two methods to modulate the ON duty ratio are proposed. Both methods results in variable-frequency operation. Experiments on two 5 V, 20 A DC-DC power converters show good performance     

一种最小电压应力的软开关无桥PFC技术研究

针对传统桥式整流升压功率因数校正(PFC)电路效率较低的缺点,提出了一种最小电压应力的软开关无桥PFC电路拓扑.在理论分析和仿真验证的基础上,研制了一台300 W的实验样机.结果表明,改进的无桥PFC电路拓扑具有通态损耗低、电流采样简单,能实现开关管零电压关断和零电流开通,同时实现整流二极管零电压导通和接近零电流软关断...