A Passive-Impedance-Matching Technology to Achieve Automatic Current Sharing for a Multiphase Resonant Converter

Abstract

A passive-impedance-matching (PIM) technology is proposed to achieve automatic current sharing for multiphase resonant converters through matching the input impedance of each phase. The series inductors (or series capacitors) of each phase are connected in parallel to achieve a couple of virtual resistors including positive and negative resistors and variably series inductors (or capacitors). A virtual positive (or negative) resistor increases (or decreases) the input impedance of the respective phase, and the variably series inductors can also compensate the component tolerance such that the impedance of each phase is matched. The current-sharing performance of the common-inductor two-phase LLC resonant converter (as one example) is evaluated under the first-harmonic-approximation assumption. The virtual positive and negative resistors and variably virtual inductors are calculated. The proposed method can share the primary resonant current and the load current for all phases without any additional circuit and control strategy. The PIM technology is extended to other resonant converter topologies, including common-inductor or common-capacitor series-resonant converter, LCC, CLL resonant converter, etc. A 600-W 12-V common-inductor two-phase LLC resonant converter prototype is built to verify the feasibility and demonstrate advantages of PIM technology.