Fundamental Examination of Multiple Potential Passive Component Technologies for Future Power Electronics

Abstract

Efficient and compact high-power high-frequency passive energy storage components are required for miniaturization of power converters and remain a challenging obstacle in power electronics. In this paper, multiple energy storage mechanisms are analyzed on an order-of-magnitude basis to identify potential alternatives for conventional passive components, especially magnetics, which have frequency-dependent power losses. The high energy density of mechanical storage methods provides an attractive alternative to the widely used LC resonance. Piezoelectric transduction is explored, and the performance of a piezoelectric resonator is compared to that of an LC resonator in terms of efficiency and power handling capabilities in a resonant switched-capacitor-type circuit. The analysis provides a basis for exploring potential passive energy storage component technologies and comparing their performance limits with those of electromagnetic passive components. The analysis shows that both electromagnetic and mechanical resonance, in the ideal scenarios, can offer much better performance than do passive component technologies in use today. A prototype resonator is built with off-the-shelf C0G capacitors to confirm the low loss and high power predicted by the model. The resulting resonator has an effective resistance of 2.76 $\text{m}{\Omega }$ at 2.70 MHz in 1 ${\text{cm}^{3}}$ volume and can handle 7.42 kW within the rated temperature.