New high power DC-DC converter with loss limited switching and lossless secondary clamp

Abstract

A new isolated high frequency high power DC-DC converter full bridge topology employing one resonant soft switching pole that is zero voltage switched and one phase-shifted hard switching pole with loss limited switching for primary switching is presented. The devices in the loss limited pole do not have resonant capacitors across them, but exhibit significantly lower losses than conventional hard switching as the energy dissipation is limited by the finite energy stored in the leakage inductance. This unique combination of zero voltage switching and loss limited switching reduces the switching loss in all primary devices to lower levels. Isolation is achieved by a coaxially wound high frequency transformer with ultra low leakage which increases throughput and efficiency. A novel nondissipative secondary rectifier clamp allows excellent control of reverse recovery energy. Converters that produce 128 kW at 25 kHz have been developed and are commercially available. As this topology exhibits complete control of all parasitic loss mechanisms, it can be easily scaled to higher power levels.