Novel passive lossless turn-on snubber for voltage source inverters

A novel passive lossless turn-on snubber with a soft-clamped turn-off snubber circuit for voltage source inverters is proposed. The energy trapped in the snubber is recovered into the DC supply and load without any active devices, associated control circuitry, or resistors. The overshoot voltage on the switches is clamped, and the peak switch current is low, making this snubber suitable for use in high-power insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) inverters     

A New Bidirectional Switch With Regenerative Snubber to Realize a Simple Series Connection for Matrix Converters

A new bidirectional switch and snubber circuit are proposed for medium-voltage AC/AC converters. The proposed switch can be constructed using 2-in-1 insulated-gate bipolar transistor and 2-in-1 diode modules, and can reduce the voltage stress of the switching device by series connection. The proposed snubber configuration is very simple and can regenerate absorbed energy. On the other hand, timing errors in the switching between the series-connected switches cause a voltage imbalance in the snubber circuit. Therefore, a simple method is proposed for reducing the voltage imbalance that uses one voltage sensor for each switch circuit. This proposed method controls the snubber voltages by adjusting the switch timings. Furthermore, application of the proposed switch circuit to a matrix converter is discussed and is confirmed by experiment.     

B型缓冲电路用于MOSFET逆变器的仿真分析

针对B型缓冲电路用于以大功率MOSFET为主开关器件的全桥逆变器时所存在的受各种因素影响较大的问题，在缓冲电路组数不同、开关频率不同、负载性质不同以及缓冲电路各参数不同等情况下使用PSpice仿真软件进行仿真，通过仿真波形分析上述各因素对开关管尖峰电压吸收效果的影响，得出了一些有益的结论，对设计B型缓冲电路时有重要的参考价值。     

The application of saturable turn-on snubbers to IGBT bridge-legcircuits

The turn-on loss of high-speed insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) accounts for a significant proportion of the total switching energy. In many applications, this loss is increased by the energy associated with diode reverse recovery of current. Such energy is absorbed by the IGBT switch at high voltage. Linear turn-on snubber inductors may be used to control the turn-on loss, diode reverse recovery, and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). These snubbers have the disadvantage of involving substantial stored energy that must be reset, normally by dissipation. An alternative is to use a saturable turn-on snubber inductor, which stores substantially less energy than a linear inductor. In this paper, the suitability of saturable turn-on snubber inductors for use with IGBTs is investigated, and possible circuit topologies for single-ended and bridge-leg applications are proposed. Mathematical analysis, simulation, and practical results are presented for the saturable inductor turn-on snubber circuit topologies     

一种新型软开关DC-DC PWM升压变换器设计

为提高转换效率并降低电源开关的电流应力,提出一种基于新型有源缓冲电路的PWM DC-DC升压变换器。该有源缓冲电路使用ZVT—ZCT软开关技术,分别提供了总开关ZVT开启及ZCT闭合、辅助开关ZCS开启及ZCT闭合。消除了总开关额外的电流及电压应力,消除了辅助开关电压应力,且有源缓冲电路的耦合电感降低了电流应力。另外,通过连续将二极管添加到辅助开关电路,防止来自共振电路的输入电流应力进入总开关。实验结果表明,相比传统的PWM变换器,新的DC-DC PWM升压变换器在满负荷时电流应力降低且总体效率能达到98.7%。     

Enhanced regenerative switching circuit for power transistors

The letter describes a novel combination of the conventional regenerative base drive circuit and the snubber circuit, which utilises the snubber current to accelerate the switching performance of a power transistor. The technique is particularly useful in high-frequency switch mode power supply applications.     

A soft switching active snubber optimized for IGBT's in singleswitch unity power factor three-phase diode rectifiers

This paper describes a soft switching active snubber for an IGBT operating in a single switch unity power factor three-phase diode rectifier. The soft switching snubber circuit provides zero-voltage turn-off for the main switch. The high turn-off losses of the IGBT due to current tailing are reduced by zero-voltage switching. This allows the circuit to be operated at very high switching frequencies with regulated DC output voltage, high quality input current and unity input power factor. Simulation and experimental results are included     

High-power-factor soft-switched boost converter

A novel implementation of the high-power-factor (HPF) boost converter with active snubber is described. The snubber circuit reduces the reverse-recovery-related losses of the rectifier and also provides zero-voltage switching for the boost switch and zero-current switching for the auxiliary switch. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated on an 80-kHz, 1.5-kW, universal-line range, HPF boost converter. The proposed technique improves the efficiency by approximately 2% at full load and low line.     

A simple energy recovery circuit for high-power inverters with complete turn-on and turn-off snubbers

This paper presents and analyzes an active energy recovery circuit for the inductive turn-on snubber and capacitive turn-off snubber used on high-power gate-turn-off thyristor inverters. The circuit performs as a simple switched-mode power supply and recovers the inductive and capacitive snubbers energy induced in power inverters back into the dc rail with the aid of an extra switch. The features and operation of the proposed circuit are given and supported by PSpice simulations and experimental results.     

A technique for reducing rectifier reverse-recovery-related lossesin high-power boost converters

A circuit technique that reduces the boost power converter losses caused by the reverse-recovery current of the rectifier is described. The losses are reduced by inserting an inductor in the series path of the boost switch and a rectifier to control the di/dt rate of the rectifier during its turn off. The energy from the inductor after the boost switch turn off is returned to the input or delivered to the output via an active snubber     

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 novel active soft switching snubber designed for boost converter

A novel active snubber for the boost converter is presented in this paper. The main novelty in this solution is that auxiliary (snubber) switch takes part in energy transfer from source to output. Although equal currents do not flow through the boost and snubber switches they operate in parallel during most of the time they are turned on. Zero-voltage turn-off and zero-current turn-on for both switches, and reduced reverse-recovery-related losses in the boost switch and diode are achieved as well. Very simple and reliable control circuit is employed because nonisolated gate-drive signals are the same for both switches.     

A magnetically coupled regenerative turn-on and turn-off snubberconfiguration

This paper presents a magnetically coupled regenerative turn-on and turn-off snubber configuration applied to a boost converter, which operates in continuous conduction mode (CCM). In addition to reducing the stresses in the switch, providing soft transitions in its turn-off voltage and turn-on current, it transfers the energy stored in the snubber capacitor to the load. This is achieved by using a coupled inductor mounted on the main inductor of the converter, which resets the capacitor voltage at each switching period. Design equations, as well as experimental results are presented, showing the high performance of the boost converter using the proposed snubber     

Analysis and optimization of regenerative linear snubbers

The regenerative linear turn-on and turn-off snubbers are analyzed and optimized independently. The optimization for fixed supply voltage and load current is done in terms of minimum total energy losses in the power electronic circuit during switching. It is shown that the dissipative summer, which up to now has been the only optimized snubber, becomes a special case of this general linear snubber. Equations describing the most important parameters are presented in normalized form in tables, and some energy results are presented in graphical form. Calculated results show that if the regenerative snubber's recovery efficiency is higher than 67%, the above mentioned optimum snubber can be used to perform snubbing action during the complete fall-time transition     

A Novel Self-Powered Supply for GCT Gate Drivers

The commercial power supply for the gate driver of integrated gate-commutated thyristors (GCTs) is an expensive proposition since the supply's output must withstand the high voltage of the GCT switch against all other relevant potentials in the converter. This voltage varies from a few thousand volts to several ten thousands of volts over the GCT application range. In this paper, a novel self-powered supply is proposed for the GCT gate driver, where the supply obtains energy from the snubber circuit of the GCT switch and then provides a regulated dc voltage for the gate driver. Since the snubber circuit is at the same potential as the GCT, the insulation level of the supply is reduced from thousands of volts to a couple of hundred volts, leading to a significant reduction in cost and size. The supply configuration is introduced and its operating principle is discussed. The design guidelines are discussed and experimental results from a 4160 V GCT current source rectifier are also provided.     

A ZCS Current-Fed Full-Bridge PWM Converter With Self-Adaptable Soft-Switching Snubber Energy

A new soft-switched, current-driven full-bridge converter is presented. The structure utilizes a simple snubber formed by two unidirectional switches and a capacitor to realize soft-switching operation over a wide line and load range. All primary-side switches are operated with zero-current switching (ZCS) and the snubber switches are operated with zero-voltage switching. The energy used for soft-switching is self-adaptable. For a given input current, the snubber capacitor is charged to the minimum required energy for ZCS of the switches. Thus, less resonant energy is used and the conduction loss can be kept minimal. The cyclical switching operation and control of the converter will be discussed. By compromising the voltage stress on the switches and loss of duty cycle (i.e., the regulation range), an optimized design procedure of the circuit elements is derived. The input voltage range and load variation that ensure both output voltage regulation and soft switching are determined. By studying the small-signal characteristics of the entire system, a current-controlled feedback control circuit has been implemented with a DSP. The experimental results measured on a 5-kW, 530-V/15-kV prototype confirms the advantages of the proposed converter.      

A new ZVT-ZCT-PWM DC-DC converter

In this paper, a new active snubber cell is proposed to contrive a new family of pulse width modulated (PWM) converters. This snubber cell provides zero voltage transition (ZVT) turn on and zero current transition (ZCT) turn off together for the main switch of a converter. Also, the snubber cell is implemented by using only one quasi resonant circuit without an important increase in the cost and complexity of the converter. New ZVT-ZCT-PWM converter equipped with the proposed snubber cell provides most the desirable features of both ZVT and ZCT converters presented previously, and overcomes most the drawbacks of these converters. Subsequently, the new converter can operate with soft switching successfully at very wide line and load ranges and at considerably high frequencies. Moreover, all semiconductor devices operate under soft switching, the main devices do not have any additional voltage and current stresses, and the stresses on the auxiliary devices are at low levels. Also, the new converter has a simple structure, low cost and ease of control. In this study, a detailed steady state analysis of the new converter is presented, and this theoretical analysis is verified exactly by a prototype of a 1-kW and 100-kHz boost converter.     

A composite soft-switching inverter configuration with unipolarpulsewidth modulation control

This paper presents a new composite soft-switching configuration for single-phase inverters where power bridge leg modules are used. The presented configuration consists of only one inductor and one capacitor as well as two low-power-rated switches/diodes for full-bridge circuits. It can realize snubber functions and/or resonant zero-current switching at any load current for switches in power inverters with unipolar sinusoid pulse width modulation control. The idea presented here is that soft-switching processes at turn-on and turn-off for each active switch in inverters can be different. The detailed circuit operational processes, simulation waveforms, and experimental results are included     

Soft switching active snubbers for DC/DC converters

A soft-switching active snubber is proposed to reduce the turn-off losses of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) in a buck power converter. The soft-switching snubber provides zero-voltage switching for the IGBT, thereby reducing its high turn-off losses due to the current tailing. The proposed snubber uses an auxiliary switch to discharge the snubber capacitor. This auxiliary switch also operates at zero-voltage and zero-current switching. The size of the auxiliary switch compared to the main switch makes this snubber a good alternative to the conventional snubber or even to passive low-loss snubbers. The use of the soft-switching active snubber permits the IGBT to operate at high frequencies with an improved RBSOA. In the experimental results reported for a 1 kW, 40 kHz prototype, combined switching/snubbing losses are reduced by 36% through the use of the active snubber compared to a conventional RCD snubber. The use of an active snubber allows recovery of part of the energy stored in the snubber capacitor during turn-off. The generic snubber cell for the buck power converter is generalized to support the common nonisolated DC/DC power converters (buck, boost, buck-boost, Cuk, sepic, zeta) as well as isolated DC/DC power converters (forward, flyback, Cuk, and sepic)     

A novel active snubber for high-power boost converters

A technique which improves the performance of the boost converter by reducing the reverse-recovery-related losses in the boost switch and rectifier with an active snubber that is implemented with a minimum number of components is presented. This minimum-component-count snubber consists of a snubber inductor, an auxiliary switch, and a rectifier. The proposed technique reduces the reverse-recovery-related losses by controlling the turn-off di/dt rate of the rectifier current with the snubber inductor connected in series with the boost switch and rectifier. The voltage and current stresses of the components in the proposed active-snubber boost converter are similar to those in its conventional “hard-switched” counterpart