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High Frequency (MHz) Resonant Converters using GaN HEMTs and Novel Planar Transformer Technology

The increased power consumption and power density demands of modern technologies have increased the technical requirements of DC/DC and AC/DC power supplies. In this regard, the primary objective of the power supply researcher/engineer is to build energy efficient, high power density converters by reducing the losses and increasing the switching frequency of converters respectively. Operating the converter circuits at higher switching frequencies reduces the size of the passive components such as transformers, inductors, and capacitors, which results in a compact size, weight, and increased power density of the converter. Therefore, the thesis work is focussed on the design, analysis and evaluation of isolated converters operating in the 1 - 5MHz frequency region with the assistance of the latest semi conductor devices, both coreless and core based planar power transformers designed in Mid Sweden University and which are suitable for consumer applications of varying power levels ranging from 1 – 60W. In high frequency converter circuits, since the MOSFET gate driver plays a prominent role, different commercially available MOSFET gate drivers were evaluated in the frequency range of 1 - 5MHz in terms of gate drive power consumption, rise/fall times and electromagnetic interference (EMI) and a suitable driver was proposed. Initially, the research was focused on the design and evaluation of a quasi resonant flyback converter using a multilayered coreless PCB step down transformer in the frequency range of 2.7 – 4MHz up to the power level of 10W. The energy efficiency of this converter is found to be 72 - 84% under zero voltage switching conditions (ZVS). In order to further improve the energy efficiency of the converter in the MHz frequency region, the new material device GaN HEMT was considered. The comparisons were made on a quasi resonant flyback DC-DC converter using both the Si and GaN technology and it was found that an energy efficiency improvement of 8 – 10% was obtained with the GaN device in the frequency range of 3.2 – 5MHz. In order to minimize the gate drive power consumption, switching losses and to increase the frequency of the converter in some applications such as laptop adapters, set top box (STB) etc., a cascode flyback converter using a low voltage GaN HEMT and a high voltage Si MOSFET was designed and evaluated using a multi-layered coreless PCB transformer in the MHz frequency region. Both the simulation and experimental results have shown that, with the assistance of the cascode flyback converter, the switching speeds of the converter can be increased with the benefit of obtaining a significant improvement in the energy efficiency as compared to that for the single switch flyback converter. In order to further maximize the utilization of the transformer, to reduce the voltage stress on MOSFETs and to obtain the maximum power density from the converter circuit, double ended topologies were considered. Due to the lack of high voltage high side gate drivers in the MHz frequency region, a gate drive circuitry utilizing the multi-layered coreless PCB signal transformer was designed and evaluated in both a half-bridge and series resonant converter (SRC). It was found that the gate drive power consumption using this transformer was around 0.66W for the frequency range of 1.5 - v 3.75 MHz. In addition, by using this gate drive circuitry, the maximum energy efficiency of the SRC using multilayered coreless PCB power transformer was found to be 86.5% with an output power of 36.5W in the switching frequency range of 2 – 3MHz. In order to further enhance the energy efficiency of the converter to more than 90%, investigations were carried out by using the multiresonant converter topology (LCC and LLC), novel hybrid core high frequency planar power transformer and the GaN HEMTs. The simulated and experimental results of the designed LCC resonant converter show that it is feasible to obtain higher energy efficiency isolated DC/DC converters in the MHz frequency region. The peak energy efficiency of the LCC converter at 3.5MHz is reported to be 92% using synchronous rectification. Different modulation techniques were implemented to regulate the converter for both line and load variations using a digital controller. In order to realize an AC/DC converter suitable for a laptop adapter application, consideration was given to the low line of the universal input voltage range due to the GaN switch limitation. The energy efficiency of the regulated converter operating in the frequency range of 2.8 – 3.5MHz is reported to be more than 90% with a load power of 45W and an output voltage of 22V dc. In order to determine an efficient power processing method on the secondary side of the converter, a comparison was made between diode rectification and synchronous rectification and optimal rectification was proposed for the converters operating in the MHz frequency range for a given power transfer application. In order to maintain high energy efficiency for a wide load range and to maintain the narrow switching frequency range for the given input voltage specifications, the LLC resonant converter has been designed and evaluated for the adapter application. From the observed results, the energy efficiency of the LLC resonant converter is maintained at a high level for a wide load range as compared to that for the LCC resonant converter. Investigations were also carried out on isolated class E resonant DC-DC converter with the assistance of GaN HEMT and a high performance planar power transformer at the switching frequency of 5MHz. The simulated energy efficiency of the converter for the output power level of 16W is obtained as 88.5% which makes it feasible to utilize the designed isolated converter for various applications that require light weight and low profile converters. In conclusion, the research in this dissertation has addressed various issues related to high frequency isolated converters and has proposed solution by designing highly energy efficient converters to meet the current industrial trends by using coreless and core based planar transformer technologies along with the assistance of GaN HEMTs. With the provided solution, in the near future, it is feasible to realize low profile, high power density DC/DC and AC/DC converters operating in MHz frequency region suitable for various applications. / High Frequency Switch Mode Power Supplies

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-20894
Date January 2013
CreatorsKotte, Hari Babu
PublisherMittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för elektronikkonstruktion, Sundsvall, Sweden : Mid Sweden University
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDoctoral thesis, comprehensive summary, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
RelationMid Sweden University doctoral thesis, 1652-893X ; 158

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