The challenge to put power electronics on the same cost reduction spiral as integrated signal electronics has yet to be met. In the ongoing work for achieving complete power electronic converter integration, it has proven to be essential to develop a technology for integration of electromagnetic power passives. This integration will enable the incorporation of resonant circuits, transformers, EMI filters and the like into the integrated power electronics modules. These integrated electromagnetic power passives have been realized in terms of distributed structures, utilizing magnetic layers, conductive layers and dielectric layers. Because of the compact structures and the special implementation techniques of these integrated modules, the high frequency parasitic resonance are normally significant and may have negative impact on the performance and EMI characteristics. However, the existing modeling technique can only predict the fundamental resonant frequency and showed neither the causes of the high frequency resonance nor how to calculate those accurately. In this dissertation, comprehensive research work towards higher order electromagnetic modeling of integrated passive components is presented. Firstly, an L-C cell is identified as the basic building block of integrated passives such as an integrated series resonator. As an essential mistake in the structure evolution process of the original resonant transmission line primitive, the well-known conventional transmission line equivalent circuit as well as the equations are not applicable for the unbalanced current in an integrated passive module. For this particular application, a generalized transmission structure theory that applies to both balanced and unbalanced current has to be developed. The impedances of a generalized transmission structure with various loads and interconnections have been studied. An open-circuited load and a short-circuited load lead to series resonance and parallel resonance, respectively. The equations are substantiated with experimental results. Some preliminary study indicates the advantages of this unbalanced current passives integration technique. Since the existing integrated passive components are no other than some combination of this generalized transmission line primitive, the theoretical analysis may be applied to the further modeling of all integrated passive components. As the extension of the generalized two-conductor transmission structure model developed for the two-conductor approach, the generalized multi-conductor transmission structure theory has been proposed. As multiple L-C cells are putting in parallel, magnetic and capacitive coupling between cells cannot be neglected. To determine the capacitance between two adjacent conductors on top of the same dielectric substrate, Schwarz-Christoffel transformation and its inverse transformation have been applied with the calculation results verified by measurement. Based on the original voltage and current equations written in matrix form, modal analysis has been conducted to solve the equations. All these provide the basis for any further modeling of an integrated passive structure. Based on the basic L-C cell structure, this dissertation proposes an alternative multi-cell approach to the integration of reactive components and establishes the principles for its design and operation. It achieves the 3-D integration and has a PCB-mount chip-like structure which may have the potential to be more manufacturable, modularizable and mechanically robust. Different functional equivalents can be obtained by different PCB interconnections. The experimental results confirm the functionality as integrated reactive components for applications such as high frequency resonators. To apply the multi-conductor generalized transmission structure model to practical integrated passives structures, three typical cases have been studied: spiral-winding structure integrated series resonator, multi-cell structure integrated series resonator and integrated RF EMI filter. All these structures can be treated as one or more multi-conductor transmission structures connected in certain patterns. Different connection patterns only determine the voltage and current boundary conditions with which the equations can be solved. After obtaining the voltages and currents at each point, the impedance or transfer gain of a structure can be obtained. The MATLAB calculation results correlate well with the measurement results. The calculation sensitivities with respect to variation of various parameters are also discussed and causes of resonance at different frequency range are identified. The proposed generalized transmission structure model based on matrix modal analysis is rather complex and takes a lot of computer time especially when the number of turns is large. Furthermore, the operating frequency of an integrated resonant module is normally around its 1st resonant frequency and up to the 2nd resonant frequency. Therefore, a more simplistic higher order lumped element model which covers the operating range up to the 2nd resonant frequency may be good enough for the general design purpose. A higher order equivalent circuit model for integrated series resonant modules as an example of integrated power passives is presented in this dissertation. Inter-winding capacitance is also considered compared to the conventional 1st order approximation model. This model has been verified by small-signal test results and can be easily implemented into the design algorithm as part of the high frequency design considerations. The wide band modeling and proposed new structure mentioned above provide a comprehensive basis for better design of integrated passive components. As a general frequency plane modeling approach, the work presented in this dissertation may be extended to other passive structures, such as multi-layer capacitors, planar magnetics, etc.. / Ph. D.

Around 19% of global power consumption and around 3% of global oil demand is attributable to lighting. After the first incandescent lamp was invented in 1879, more and more energy efficient lighting devices, such as gas discharge lamps, and light-emitting diodes (LED), have been developed during the last century. It is estimated that over 38% of future global lighting energy demand could be avoided by the use of more efficient lamps and ballasts [1]. High intensity discharge (HID) lamps, one category of gas discharge lamp, have been widely used in both commercial and residential lighting applications due to their merits of high efficacy, long life, compact size and good color rendition [2-4]. However, HID lamps require a well-designed ballast to stabilize the negative VI characteristics. A so-called ignitor is also needed to provide high voltage to initiate the gas discharge. Stringent input harmonic current limits, such as the IEC 61000-3-2 Class C standard, are set for lighting applications. It is well-known that high-frequency electronic ballasts can greatly save energy, improve lamp performance, and reduce the ballast size and weight compared with the conventional magnetic ballast. However, a unique phenomenon called acoustic resonance could occur in HID lamps under high-frequency operation. A low-frequency square wave current driving scheme has proved to be the only effective method to avoid acoustic resonance in HID lamps. A typical electronic HID ballast consist of three stages: power factor correction (PFC), DC/DC power regulation and low-frequency DC/AC inverter. The ignitor is usually integrated in the inverter stage. The three-stage structure results in a large size and high cost, which unfortunately offsets the merit of the HID lamp, especially in low-wattage applications. In order to make HID lamps more attractive in low-wattage and indoor applications, it is critical to reduce the size, weight and cost of HID ballasts. This dissertation is aimed at developing a compact HID with an ultra-compact ballast installed inside the lamp fixture. It is a similar concept to the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), but it is much more challenging than the CFL. Two steps are explored to achieve high power density of the HID ballast. The first step is to improve the system structure and circuit topology. Instead of a three-stage structure, a two-stage structure is proposed, which consists of a single-stage power factor correction (SSPFC) AC/DC front-end and an unregulated DC/AC inverter/ignitor stage. An SSPFC AC/DC converter is proposed as the front-end. A DCM non-isolated flyback PFC semi-stage and a DCM buck-boost DC/DC semi-stage share the semiconductor switch, driver and PWM controller, so that the component count and cost can be reduced. The proposed SSPFC AC/DC front-end converter can achieve a high power factor, low THD, low bulk capacitor voltage, and the desired power regulation with a simple control circuit. Because the number of high-frequency switches is reduced compared to that of state-of-the-art two-stage HID ballast topologies, the switching frequency can be increased without sacrificing high efficiency, so the passive component size can be reduced. The power density of the whole ballast is increased using this two-stage structure. It results in a 2.5 times power density (6 W/in3) improvement compared to the commercial product (2.4 W/in3). The power density of the converter in discrete fashion usually suffers as a result of poor three-dimensional (3D) volume utilization due to a large component count and the different form factor of different components. In the second step, integration and packaging technologies are explored to further increase the power density. A 3D passive integrated HID ballast is proposed in this dissertation. All power passive components are designed in planar shape with a uniform form factor to fully utilize the three-dimensional space. In addition, electromagnetic integration technologies are applied to achieve structural, functional and processing integration to reduce component volume and labor cost. System partitioning, integration and packaging strategies, and implementation of major power passive integration, including an integrated EMI filter, and an integrated ignitor, will be discussed in the dissertation. The proposed integrated ballast is projected to double the power density of the discrete implementation. By installing the HID ballast inside the lamp fixture, the ambient temperature for the ballast will be much higher than the conventional separately installed ballast, and combined with a reduced size, the thermal condition for the integrated ballast will be much more severe. A thermal simulation model of the integrated ballast is built in the IDEAS simulation tool, and appropriate thermal management methods are investigated using the IDEAS simulation model. Experimental verification of various thermal management methods is provided. Based on the thermal management study, a new integrated ballast with improved thermal design is proposed. / Ph. D.

The demand for high power density keeps driving the development of electromagnetic integration technologies in the field of power electronics. Based on planar homogeneous integrated structures, the mechanism of the electromagnetic integration of passives has been investigated with distributed-parameter models. High order modeling of integrated passives has been developed to investigate the electromagnetic performance. The design algorithm combining electromagnetic design and loss models has been developed to optimize and evaluate the spiral winding structure. High power density of 480 W/in3 has been obtained on the prototype. Due to the structural limitation, the currently applied planar spiral winding structure does not sufficiently utilize the space, and the structure is mechanically vulnerable. The improvement on structures is necessary for further application of integrated passives. The goal of this research is to investigate and evaluate alternative structures for high-power-density integrated passives. The research covers electromagnetic modeling, constructional study, design algorithm, loss modeling, thermal management and implementation technology The symmetric single layer structure and the stacked structure are proposed to overcome the disadvantages of the currently applied planar spiral winding structure. Because of the potential of high power density and low power loss, the stacked structure is selected for further research. The structural characteristics and the processing technologies are addressed. By taking an integrated LLCT module as the study case, the general design algorithm is developed to find out a set of feasible designs. The obtained design maps are used to evaluate the constraints from spatial, materials and processing technologies for the stacked structure. Based on the assumption of one-dimensional magnetic filed on the cross-section and linear current distribution along the longitudinal direction of the stacked structure, the electromagnetic field distribution is analyzed and the loss modeling is made. The experimental method is proposed to measure the loss and to verify the calculation. The power loss in the module leads to thermal issues, which limit the processed power of power electronics modules and thus limit the power density. To further improve the power handling ability of the module, the thermal management is made based on loss estimation. The heat extraction technology is developed to improve the heat removal ability and further improve the power density of integrated passives. The experimental results verify the power density improvement from the proposed stacked structure and the applied heat extraction technology. The power density of 1147 W/in3 (70 W/cm3) is achieved in the implemented LLCT module with the efficiency of 97.8% at output power of 1008W. / Ph. D.

The multi-conductor lossy transmission-line model and finite element simulation tool are used to analyze the high-frequency attenuator and the DM transmission-line EMI filter. The insertion gain, transfer gain, current distribution, and input impedance of the filter under a nominal design are discussed. In order to apply the transmission-line EMI filter to power electronics systems, the performance of the filter under different dimensions, material properties, and source and load impedances must be known. The influences of twelve parameters of the DM transmission-line EMI filter on the cut-off frequency, the roll-off slope, and other characteristics of the insertion gain and transfer gain curves are investigated. The most influential parameters are identified. The current sharing between the copper and nickel conductors under different parameters are investigated. The performance of the transmission-line EMI filter under different source and load impedances is also explored. The measurement setups of the DM transmission-line EMI filter using a network analyzer have been discussed. The network analyzer has a common-ground problem that influences the measured results of the high-frequency attenuator. However, the common-ground problem has a negligible influence on the measured results of the DM transmission-line EMI filter. The connectors and copper strips between the connectors and the filter introduce parasitic inductance to the measurement setup. Both simulated and measured results show that transfer gain curve is very sensitive to the parasitic inductance. However, the insertion gain curve is not sensitive to the parasitic inductance. There are two major methods to reduce the parasitic inductance of the measurement setup: using small connectors and applying a four-terminal measurement setup. The transfer gain curves of three measurement setups are compared: the two-terminal measurement setup with BNC connectors, the two-terminal measurement setup with Sub Miniature version B (SMB) connectors, and the four-terminal measurement setup with SMB connectors. The four-terminal measurement setup with SMB connectors is the most accurate one and is applied for all the transfer gain measurements in this dissertation. This dissertation also focuses on exploring ways to improve the performance of the DM transmission-line EMI filter. Several improved structures of the DM transmission-line EMI filter are investigated. The filter structure without insulation layer can greatly reduce the thickness of the filter without changing its performance. The meander structure can increase the total length of the filter without taking up too much space and results in the cut-off frequency being shifted lower and achieving more attenuation. A prototype of the two-dielectric-layer filter structure is built and measured. The measurement result confirms that a multi-dielectric-layer structure is an effective way to achieve a lower cut-off frequency and more attenuation. This dissertation proposes a broadband DM EMI filter combining the advantages of the discrete reflective LC EMI filter and the transmission-line EMI filter. Two DM absorptive transmission-line EMI filters take the place of the two DM capacitors in the discrete reflective LC EMI filter. The measured insertion gain of the prototype has a large roll-off slope at low frequencies and large attenuation at high frequencies. The dependence of the broadband DM EMI filter on source and load impedances is also investigated. Larger load (source) impedance gives more attenuation no matter it is resistive, inductive or capacitive. The broadband DM EMI filter always has more high-frequency attenuation than the discrete reflective LC EMI filter under different load (source) impedances. / Ph. D.