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I. INTRODUCTION
ECENTLY, the efficiency problem in server power sup-
R plies has become an important issue because of its elec-
tricity consumption growth and cooling cost increase [1]–[5].
Especially, the necessity of a high-efficient server power system Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the conventional asymmetric half-bridge
is emphasized in the medium power (600–800 W) supplies since converter.
the server infrastructure has spread to small companies these
days. For this purpose, several techniques have been proposed
to reduce the switching losses and component stresses [6]–[24].
Among the proposed techniques, the conventional phase-shifted Also, the voltage stress of the switches is clamped at its input
full-bridge (PSFB) converter [6]–[8], the active-clamp forward voltage level. As a result, it has been chosen as the most suitable
converter [21], and the asymmetric control half-bridge con- topology for the server system in middle power range. However,
verter [23], [24] are chosen as promising candidates for their the asymmetric half-bridge converter also contains following
zero voltage switching (ZVS) operation, relatively lower cur- drawbacks. The remained dc offset current at the magnetizing
rent stress, and simple configuration. However, the usage of the inductor decreases the transformer utilization, and the unbal-
PSFB converter is limited to medium power supplies since it anced voltage-/current stress degrades the performance of the
adopts large number of main switches on the primary side. The rectifier stage. Furthermore, its nonlinear dc conversion charac-
PSFB converter increases the cost and decreases the power den- teristic requires higher duty variation for the same input variation
sity of the converter. The active clamp forward converter has compared to other linear converters. It makes the converter oper-
simple structure, but it is also suffered from high-voltage rat- ated beyond the optimum operating point at high-input voltage
ing of the main switch. The voltage stress of the active clamp specifications.
forward converter is the highest among three ZVS topologies, A number of different techniques have been proposed to
which increases the cost and degrades the performance of the overcome the drawbacks of the asymmetric half-bridge con-
converter. The asymmetric half-bridge converter shown in Fig. 1 verter [25]–[27]. Employing an auxiliary transformer has been
is the most attractive topology among three different techniques suggested [25]. With the auxiliary transformer, the converter
mentioned earlier. It has simple structure and wide ZVS range. extended its nominal duty ratio, but the offset problem of the
magnetizing current is still remained in the transformers. As a
result, power density and core utilization are severely deterio-
Manuscript received May 8, 2009; revised July 14, 2009. Current version rated in the converter. Duty cycle shifted pulsewidth modulation
published April 9, 2010. This paper was presented at the Proceedings of the 6th
IEEE International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference, Wuhan, (PWM) control technique proposed in [26] is very simple and
China, May 17– 20, 2009. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor able to eliminate magnetizing current offset of the converter.
H. S. H. Chung. However, one of the two switches in the converter is still op-
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Ad-
vanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Korea (e-mail: erated in hard switching condition, and large ripple current is
ihnara@angel.kaist.ac.kr; philoman@angel.kaist.ac.kr; negative@angel.kaist. shown in the rectifier. Adopting an auxiliary switch ON the sec-
ac.kr; gwmoon@ee.kaist.ac.kr). ondary side of the asymmetric half-bridge converter has been
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. proposed as another solution [27]. The dc offset of magnetizing
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2009.2029549 current problem could be solved effectively with this solution.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Guru Anandan Saminathan. Downloaded on June 14,2010 at 08:06:45 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
944 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, APRIL 2010
However, its nominal duty ratio is still limited, and the control
scheme is difficult to realize.
In order to overcome all these drawbacks, a new high-efficient
multilevel half-bridge converter is proposed, as shown in Fig. 2.
The proposed converter employs an auxiliary circuit for the out- Fig. 3. Applied voltages on transformers: (a) at nominal input voltage and
put regulation. The auxiliary circuit supplies additional voltage (b) at minimum input voltage.
to the main transformer when input voltage decreases. Thus,
the main switches can be operated at 50% duty ratio and fixed
switching frequency. Since the main switches are always oper- is decreased in proportion with the turn ratio of the auxiliary
ated at 50% duty ratio, their ZVS operation is easily achieved, transformer, thus the current rating of the auxiliary switches is
and the transformer is effectively utilized with no dc offset of much smaller than that of the main switches. In addition, the
the magnetizing current. Moreover, the ZVS operation of the symmetric operation of the proposed converter makes the pri-
auxiliary switches is easily realized by output inductor energy, mary current be optimized on the conduction loss and increases
and the doubled switching frequency shown at the output filter the utilization of the transformers.
reduces the output ripple current significantly.
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CHO et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENT MULTILEVEL HALF-BRIDGE CONVERTER 945
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946 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, APRIL 2010
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CHO et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENT MULTILEVEL HALF-BRIDGE CONVERTER 947
D. Component Stress
Due to the symmetric control of the switches, the proposed
converter has balanced current and voltage stress on its com-
ponents, while the asymmetric half-bridge converter has un-
balanced stress distribution because of its asymmetric control
Fig. 6. Applied filter voltages in each converter: (a) he proposed converter
method. As a result, the proposed converter can adopt primary
and (b) asymmetric half-bridge converter. switches with lower current ratings and rectifier diodes with
lower voltage ratings than that of the asymmetric half-bridge
converter. Thus, the cost of the switches can be reduced, and the
where Deff represents the duration of mode1. The dc conversion efficiency of the rectifier diodes is increased with the proposed
ratio for the asymmetric half-bridge converter is converter.
E. ZVS Condition
vO NS
=2 × D(1 − D). (8) The ZVS conditions of the auxiliary switches in the proposed
vin NP
converter are well achieved because the output capacitors of the
auxiliary switches are discharged by utilizing the large energy
Different from the dc conversion ratio of the asymmetric
stored in the output inductance. For the main switches M1 and
half-bridge converter, the dc conversion ratio of the proposed
M2 , the auxiliary transformer helps increase its ZVS range. It
converter has linearity, as shown in Fig. 7.
is because the energy stored in the leakage inductance of the
auxiliary transformer has also participated in the ZVS operation
B. DC Offset Current in Magnetizing Inductor with the energy stored in the leakage inductance of the main
transformer. Hence, the ZVS range can be extended with the
Since the switches of the proposed converter are controlled leakage inductance of the auxiliary transformer. Fig. 8 shows
symmetrically, the dc offset of the magnetizing current can be the required leakage inductance on every load current condition.
easily eliminated in the proposed converter. Therefore, the trans- As the turn ratio of the auxiliary transformer increases, the
former is fully utilized and it increases the power density of the required leakage inductance for ZVS operation is decreased.
system. However, the dc offset current in the magnetizing induc- Therefore, the ZVS range in the proposed converter can be
tor is varied with the duty ratio in the asymmetric half-bridge extended by increasing the turn ratio of the auxiliary transformer
converter. Thus, the utilization of the transformer is severely de- turn ratio. Also the auxiliary leakage inductance can be added
teriorated in the asymmetric half-bridge converter. The dc offset in the proposed converter to achieve ZVS operation in more
current for the proposed converter (9) and for the asymmetric extended load range. The condition to realize the ZVS operation
half-bridge converter (10) are expressed as follows: in the proposed converter is presented in (13).
2
IO IO 1 1 1
Deff ILm + = Deff −ILm + .·. ILm ,prop osed = 0 (2COSS ) VS − 0.5 VS / 1 + ≤ Llkg i2pri(1)
n1 n1 2 n2 2
(13)
(9) where COSS is output capacitor of main switches. However,
nS the ZVS condition of the asymmetric half-bridge converter is
ILm ,conventional = (1 − 2 × D) × IO . (10)
nP heavily depended on its dc offset of magnetizing current. Due to
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948 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, APRIL 2010
Fig. 7. dc conversion ratios of each converter: (a) proposed converter and (b) asymmetric half-bridge converter.
V. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
In this section, design guideline of the transformers is
presented.
There are two main factors that must be considered for the
selection of turn ratio of the transformers in the proposed con-
verter. These are the voltage regulation condition and the loss at
the auxiliary circuit. In the proposed converter, the main trans-
former is always operated with its maximum duty ratio and
output voltage is regulated by controlling the effective duty ra-
tio of the auxiliary circuit. When the input voltage decreases, the
auxiliary circuit supplies additional voltage to the main trans-
former for the compensation of the input voltage. Therefore, to
Fig. 8. Relation of the minimum required leakage inductance and load current satisfy the regulation condition, the voltage supplied by the aux-
(at 700 W, Vo = 12 V spec.). iliary transformer must be able to increase as much as maximum
input differences. This condition is expressed as follows:
Dnom < Deff ,m ax < 0.5 ( at, Vin,m in )
. (15)
0 < Deff ,m in < Dnom (at, Vin,m ax )
The aforementioned condition is also represented as a graph
in Fig. 9. The proper range of the transformer turn ratio can be
determined with the voltage regulation rule.
The loss at the auxiliary circuit is another factor when de-
signing the transformers. To minimize the loss of the auxiliary
circuit, core loss of the auxiliary transformer and conduction
loss of the auxiliary switches should be minimized. For the least
core loss of the auxiliary transformer at nominal operating con-
dition, the converter should be able to operate without utilizing
the auxiliary transformer at nominal operating condition. As a
result, the effective duty ratio has to be minimized at nominal
operating condition. Fig. 10 shows the effective duty ratio for
the offset current, the two switches in the same leg have different the different turn ratio of the auxiliary transformer. As the turn
ZVS condition. The ZVS range of one switch is increased, ratio increases the effective duty ratio at nominal operating con-
but the range is decreased to the other switch in the same leg. dition decreases. The increased turn ratio also helps extend ZVS
Thus, to achieve safe ZVS condition in both switches, following range of the main switches. Therefore, the largest turn ratio of
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CHO et al.: HIGH-EFFICIENT MULTILEVEL HALF-BRIDGE CONVERTER 949
Fig. 11. Experimental waveforms: (a) proposed converter and (b) asymmetric
half-bridge converter.
Fig. 10. Effective duty ratio at nominal operating condition for the different
turn ratio of the auxiliary transformer (at 700 W, Vo = 12 V spec.).
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950 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 25, NO. 4, APRIL 2010
Fig. 13. Voltage regulation of the proposed converter: (a) nominal operation
(Vin = 400 V) and (b) hold-up time operation (Vin = 330 V). VII. CONCLUSION
A new multilevel half-bridge converter was presented and an-
alyzed. By employing one small subtransformer and two small
ume: 5477 mm3 , µ : 60) cores are used in the proposed con- additional switches, the proposed converter shows better perfor-
verter and the asymmetric half-bridge converter, respectively. mance than the asymmetric half-bridge converter in entire load
The switch used for the main switches in proposed converter is range. The proposed converter has lower conduction loss and re-
IPP60R299, and IPP60R600 is used for the auxiliary switches. quires smaller filter inductance than the asymmetric half-bridge
In order to compare both converters in the same condition, the converter. Also, it achieves good ZVS condition, and its sym-
same switches used in the proposed converter are adopted to par- metrical operation characteristic balances the voltage/current
allel connected switches in the main switches of the asymmetric stresses on its components and eliminates the dc offset of magne-
half-bridge converter. Synchronous switches are also adopted in tizing current, which degrade the utilization of the transformer.
the rectifier stage to improve efficiency of the converters. For Therefore, the proposed converter can be selected as a good
the control of the experimental prototypes, a UCC3895 phase- candidate in middle power server system.
shift PWM controller is used for the proposed converter and
a IRS21844 S half-bridge driver is used for the asymmetric REFERENCES
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