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Gallium nitride (GaN) devices are generally more prone to severe switching oscillations than Si mosfets due to their fast switching speeds. Different from Si and SiC mosfets, GaN devices typically have a lower maximum gate voltage rating. Taking the Efficient Power Conversion Corporation series as an example, the gate drive voltage is usually 5 V, but the maximum voltage rating is 6 V. Therefore, GaN devices are more susceptible to damage from gate-source voltage oscillation. In this letter, a gate drive circuit with a clamping function is proposed to suppress gate-source voltage oscillation. The adopted method can not only clamp the gate voltage of the GaN device near the drive voltage to protect the device, but also does not affect the switching speed of the device. The proposed method mainly uses some passive components that make the circuit design simpler compared with other active gate driver methods. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a half-bridge class-D audio amplifier (HB-CDAA) system with embedded bidirectional buck–boost converter is proposed. The proposed HB-CDAA system consists of a front-end symmetric bipolar output converter, a bidirectional buck–boost converter, and an HB-CDAA. With the help of the embedded bidirectional buck–boost converter, bus voltage pumping on the output of the front-end symmetric bipolar output converter of HB-CDAA can be suppressed. Thus, small ceramic capacitors can be used as bus capacitors to increase power density and to improve audio output quality. Furthermore, ZVS of the embedded bidirectional buck–boost converter can be achieved. The operating principle of the proposed circuit is analyzed and an experimental prototype is built. Experimental results show that ZVS of the embedded bidirectional buck–boost converter is achieved, and bus voltage pumping is successfully suppressed with small bus capacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well-known that the ripple control technique benefits from fast load transient response and small cross regulation for single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) dc–dc converter. However, existing capacitor current ripple (CCR) controlled SIDO buck converter suffers from incomplete operation state and single switching path. Thus, it has a limited stable load range. In order to extend the stable load range and suppress cross regulation of SIDO buck converter in continuous conduction mode (CCM), a novel ripple control technique, called as capacitor current and capacitor voltage ripple (CCVR) control, is proposed in this article. The operation principle of the proposed CCVR controlled SIDO CCM buck converter is presented, and its discrete iterative map model is established. Furthermore, the stability and stable load range have been discussed by using bifurcation diagrams. Based on the established small signal model, Bode plots are given to show the performance in suppressing cross regulation. Finally, simulation and experiment results are provided to verify the theoretical analysis. It shows that the proposed CCVR control technique can be applied to SIDO CCM buck converter to extend its stable load range and suppress its cross regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inductive power transfer (IPT) systems with multiple output voltages are potential to supply a variety of loads simultaneously. This article proposes an IPT system with multiple semiactive rectifier cells (SARCs) connected in series at the receiver (Rx) side. These SARCs are independent of each other and their output voltages can be regulated individually with single receiver coil, which reduces the cost and volume. The proposed IPT configuration has the advantages of high flexibility, simple control, and no cross regulation. Considering that the SARC may cause additional reactance and lead to detuning of the Rx side, variable inductor is introduced to ensure the full tuning condition. Thus, the proposed IPT system can maintain zero phase angle operation with unity power factor in the whole load range, minimizing the reactive power losses. In addition, both primary inverter and the SARCs can achieve zero voltage switching. To verify the feasibility and validity of the proposed IPT system, an experimental prototype with two outputs of 640 W/150 V and 400 W/120 V is built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inductor–capacitor–capacitor-series (LCC-S) compensation topology has been widely used in inductive power transfer (IPT) systems due to its constant coil current regardless of the load and the coupling coefficient. Usually, the inductance of transmitter coil is sensitive to misalignments of the magnetic coupler when the asymmetrical coil structure with a smaller size receiver coil is adopted. The fluctuation of the inductance of transmitter coil will increase the power losses in the primary inverter. To compensate the fluctuation of the transmitter coil inductance, a digital switch-controlled capacitor (D-SCC) for maximum efficiency point tracking (MEPT) of LCC-S compensated IPT system is proposed. Consequently, the proposed LCC-S compensated IPT system can achieve high efficiency against the fluctuation of transmitter coil inductance. In traditional switch-controlled capacitor, high- frequency current sensor is required for the synchronization between the transmitter coil current and the driver signals of the switch-controlled capacitor. Nevertheless, the drive signals of D-SCC can be generated directly by the DSP controller in the primary side without detecting zero-cross points of the transmitter coil current, which can improve the system reliability and reduce the cost. Furthermore, the MEPT based on D-SCC is easy to be implemented because only the input dc current measurement is required. A 3.3-kW prototype is presented to verify the validity of the proposed D-SCC-based MEPT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional boost power factor correction (PFC) converter is only suitable for two-stage power conversion system due to its high output voltage. Inherent step-up characteristic limits its applications in single-stage low voltage output. In this article, a boost-type single-stage step-down resonant PFC converter, which combines a boost PFC converter and a resonant switched capacitor network by using one active switch, is proposed and analyzed. Similar to conventional boost PFC converter, the proposed converter can achieve unity power factor and low input current ripple in universal-input applications. Moreover, the proposed converter can achieve step-down voltage conversion. Furthermore, high-efficiency is realized due to single-stage power conversion. The proposed converter is studied in terms of operation principle, voltage gain, power factor analysis, and key circuit parameters design. Finally, a 70-W prototype with 96.05% peak efficiency is built to verify the theoretical analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-stage power conversion of class-D amplifier with front-end switching mode power supply affects the power conversion efficiency of audio amplifier system. Single-stage inverter (SSI) developed from cycloconverter can be used as audio amplifier to improve efficiency. However, current commutation of cycloconverter switches challenges for high efficiency and low total harmonic distortion (THD). In this article, a bipolar phase shift modulation (BPSM) SSI is proposed for high efficiency low distortion audio amplification. Full bridge active clamp (FBAC) circuit is used to clamp the voltage across cycloconverter switches and recycle the energy of filter inductor and leakage inductance. By using active clamp, utilization of magnetizing inductance current and optimization of driving sequence of clamp switches, zero voltage switching of the proposed BPSM FBAC-SSI is achieved over wide range. With BPSM and voltage clamp across cycloconverter switches, low THD of output voltage is also achieved. A 200 kHz prototype with 250 W output power is presented to verify the analysis results of the proposed BPSM FBAC-SSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power factor correction (PFC) converter suffers from serious double-line-frequency output voltage ripple due to the difference between instantaneous ac input power and dc output power. To suppress such double-line-frequency output voltage ripple, a ripple cancellation circuit (RCC) is utilized to generate the same magnitude but 180° phase shifted double-line- frequency voltage ripple. This paper provides an insight into the relationship between control scheme and double-line-frequency ripple suppression from the perspective of audio susceptibility model. For the purpose of reducing the double line frequency ripple, the closed-loop audio susceptibility of series RCC should be designed relatively low at double line frequency. According to such requirement, a ripple controller with improved voltage feed-forward (FF) scheme and quasi-proportional-resonant (QPR) compensator is designed. As QPR compensator can increase the denominator of the closed-loop audio susceptibility, while voltage FF scheme can reduce its numerator, its magnitude at double line frequency is thus greatly reduced and double-line-frequency ripple is also significantly suppressed. Moreover, due to the flexibility of QPR compensator, the proposed ripple controller presents good ripple suppression in a different line frequency application. Finally, experimental results of a flyback PFC with buck-type RCC quasi-single-stage ac–dc converter are provided to verify the validity of the proposed ripple controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A soft switching symmetric bipolar outputs dc-transformer (DCX) for eliminating power supply pumping of half-bridge class-D audio amplifiers is proposed in this paper. Compared with the traditional unidirectional front-end dc–dc converter in the half-bridge class-D audio amplifier, output capacitances of the proposed DCX and voltage stress of the half-bridge class-D audio amplifier are significantly reduced. Soft switching of the proposed DCX can be achieved when the load current of half-bridge class-D audio amplifier is positive or negative. Thus, the efficiency and power density of the proposed audio amplifier system can be improved. In addition, the proposed DCX has smoothing transition between the positive load current and the negative load current with a simple open-loop controller. The operating principle of the proposed DCX is analyzed and a 200-W prototype is built up. Experimental results show that power supply pumping is reduced with small DCX output capacitors, symmetric bipolar outputs are obtained and peak efficiency of 96.3% is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A flicker-free single switch multi-string LED driver with high power factor and current balancing is proposed and analyzed. It combines a pre-stage boost PFC converter and multiple second-stage buck dc–dc converters by a single active switch and multiple dc-link capacitors. With the proposed circuit configuration of multiple dc-link capacitors, the output current of each LED string can be balanced. Therefore, by controlling the output current of one LED string, the output currents of other LED strings can be controlled via current balancing of dc-link capacitors. The effect of the ripple of dc-link voltage on each output can be eliminated by fast voltage mode control loop. Therefore, flicker-free low ripple current for each LED string is achieved. With small voltage ripple across dc-link capacitors, the turn on time of active switch is almost constant in a half line cycle. Therefore, power factor correction can be achieved with inductor current of pre-stage operating in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). Finally, prototypes of dual-string LED driver with 90–135 Vac input and 175–265 Vac input for 47 W output power are built to verify the studied results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) dc–dc converter operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM), load variation of one output will affect the voltage of the other output, i.e., there exists cross regulation between its two outputs. To suppress the cross regulation of the SIDO dc–dc converter operating in CCM, a novel ripple based control technique, called capacitor current ripple (CCR) control technique, is proposed in this paper. The operation principle of the SIDO CCM buck converter and the proposed CCR control technique are presented. The small signal model of the CCR-controlled SIDO CCM buck converter is established by the state space averaging method. Bode plots based on small signal model show that the proposed CCR-controlled SIDO CCM buck converter significantly reduces cross regulation and improves the transient performance compared with the peak current mode controlled SIDO CCM buck converter. In addition, the effect of the variation of loads on the stability of the proposed CCR-controlled SIDO CCM buck converter is analyzed by eigenvalues analysis. Finally, experimental results are provided to verify the analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel high-efficiency resonant light emitting diode (LED) backlight driver with passive current balancing and dimming is proposed and analyzed in this paper. The proposed LED driver achieves uniform brightness of each LED string by the charge balance of the resonant capacitor, which benefits from high efficiency. By controlling the output current of one LED string, the output currents of other LED strings can be controlled via current balancing of resonant capacitors, which makes its control simple. The proposed LED driver uses only one active switch, which decreases circuit volume and simplifies the control. Furthermore, a wide load range can be achieved by controlling the turn-on duty ratio of the single power switch of the LED driver with a fixed frequency. Finally, a prototype of a high-dimming-ratio small-size three-string LED driver is provided to verify the studied results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A resonant single-stage single-switch four-output LED driver with high power factor and passive current balancing is proposed. By controlling one output current, the other output currents of four-output LED driver can be controlled via passive current balancing, which makes its control simple. When magnetizing inductor current operates in critical conduction mode, unity power factor is achieved. The proposed LED driver uses only one active switch and one magnetic component, thus it benefits from low cost, small volume, and light weight. Moreover, high-efficiency performance is achieved due to single-stage power conversion and soft-switching characteristics. The characteristics of the proposed LED driver are studied in this paper and experimental results of two 110-W four-output isolated LED drivers are provided to verify the studied results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both constant on-time (COT) and fixed off-time (FOT) control techniques are suitable for various applications requiring fast transient response. However, the discrete-time model of COT controlled buck converter only has two switched borderlines, whereas that of FOT controlled buck converter has four switched borderlines. Based on the derivations of these borderlines, an asynchronous-switching map of FOT controlled buck converter is established. With the decrease of equivalent series resistance (ESR) of output capacitor, instability and mode shifting from continuous conduction mode (CCM) to discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) are discussed. Furthermore, with small ESR of output capacitor, stability effects of load resistance and inductance on dynamical behaviors are investigated, and the approximate stability criteria and the corresponding normalized critical conditions are obtained. The theoretical analyses and experimental results show that the converter operates in DCM chaos via period-doubling and border-collision bifurcation routes, and its instability caused by small ESR can be removed by choosing appropriate load resistance, inductance, and voltage transfer ratio, which are very suitable for the circuit design of FOT controlled buck converter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with constant duty cycle-controlled discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) boost power factor (PF) correction (PFC) converter, constant duty cycle-controlled quadratic DCM–DCM boost PFC converter features with much lower second-order line frequency output voltage ripple, and however, it suffers from low PF. To increase PF of quadratic DCM–DCM boost PFC converter, a variable duty cycle control technique for quadratic DCM–DCM boost PFC converter is presented in this paper. An approximation equivalent for the variable duty cycle is employed to simplify the implementation circuit. The corresponding expressions of PF and output voltage ripple are analyzed. For input voltage range of 100–240 Vac, quadratic DCM–DCM boost PFC converter with variable duty cycle control benefits with very high PF, and tradeoff between PF and output voltage ripple of this converter is analyzed. Experimental results from 100-W prototypes are given to verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is known that the ripple-based control of a switching dc–dc converter benefits from a faster transient response than a conventional pulse width modulation (PWM) control switching dc–dc converter. However, ripple-based control switching dc–dc converters may suffer from fast-scale oscillation. In order to achieve fast transient response and ensure the stable operation of a switching dc–dc converter over a wide load range, based on a conventional pulse train (PT) control technique, a peak capacitor current PT (PCC-PT) control technique is proposed in this paper. With a buck converter as an example, the operating modes, steady-state performance, and transient respond performance of a PCC-PT controlled buck converter are presented and assessed. To eliminate fast-scale oscillation, circuit and control parameter design considerations are given. An accurate discrete iteration model of a PCC-PT controlled buck converter is established, based on which the effects of circuit parameters on the stability of the converter operating in a discontinuous current mode (DCM), mixed DCM-continuous conduction mode (CCM), and CCM are studied. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The pulse-train (PT) control technique for switching dc–dc converters is simple to design and benefits from excellent control performance. Up to now, almost all of the works on PT control are focused on switching dc–dc converters operating in discontinuous conduction mode, with few works reported on PT control of switching dc–dc converters operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM). In this paper, a PT-controlled CCM buck converter is studied and a unique low-frequency oscillation phenomenon is revealed, which results in large undesired inductor-current and output-voltage variations. The effect of equivalent series resistance (ESR) output-capacitor on the low-frequency oscillation is examined. The results indicate that such oscillation occurs when the ESR output-capacitor is relatively small and disappears when it is relatively large. However, a larger ESR will result in a large output-voltage ripple. In order to avoid the low-frequency oscillation and, at the same time, to ensure a small output-voltage ripple, the ICRIF circuit is applied. In this way, a small ESR output-capacitor can be used to decrease the output-voltage ripple. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Equivalent series resistance (ESR) of output capacitor has a significant effect on the control performance of constant on-time (COT) controlled switching dc-dc converters. In this paper, a discrete-time model of COT-controlled buck converter, with variable sampling frequency, is established. Based upon which, the dynamical effects of the ESR of output capacitor on COT-controlled buck converter are revealed and analyzed. The time-domain numerical simulations of the exact switched state equations, the bifurcation diagrams, and maximal Lyapunov exponents of the discrete-time model are obtained. These results verified by experimental circuit indicate that the ESR of output capacitor is a critical factor for COT-controlled buck converter, which can eliminate the unique pulse bursting phenomenon and shift operation mode from discontinuous conduction mode to continuous conduction mode, as well as control stability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the effect of equivalent series resistance (ESR) of an output capacitor on the performance of a constant-on-time (COT)-controlled buck converter is studied, and a pulse bursting phenomenon is revealed. It indicates that the ESR of the output capacitor is one of the key factors causing pulse bursting phenomenon in COT-controlled buck converters, and the critical ESR is derived via time-domain analysis and stability analysis in the s-domain. It is pointed out that, when the ESR of the output capacitor is smaller than the critical ESR, pulse bursting phenomenon occurs; otherwise, it disappears. Simulation and experimental results are provided to verify the theoretical analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high efficiency single‐stage switching amplifier based on high‐frequency link inverter is proposed. Bipolar phase shift modulation is adopted in the proposed switching amplifier. Auxiliary circuits including freewheeling diodes, clamp capacitors and active clamp bridge (ACB) are added to provide a current flowing path for the inductor current during the dead time of the bidirectional switches. The ACB is synchronised with primary‐side switches to absorb the leakage inductor energy and clamp the secondary‐side transformer voltages. With single‐stage conversion and leakage inductor energy recycle, high efficiency of the proposed switching amplifier is achieved. A 5 V/25 W prototype is presented to verify the analysis results of the proposed switching amplifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A capacitor current feedback pulse train (CCF‐PT) control technique for switching DC–DC converters is proposed and applied to the control of a buck converter operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM). The analysis and experimental results show that the CCF‐PT control technique can effectively eliminate the low‐frequency oscillation phenomenon that exists in conventional pulse train (PT)‐controlled CCM switching DC–DC converters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]