This paper presents a novel prototype of lowered loss snubber circuit topology suitable for multilevel voltage source-inverters and rectifiers for high-power applications. The reduced power loss characteristics and voltage capability performances of the proposed voltage clamped snubber circuit are evaluated relative to conventional RCD snubber circuits designed for four-level voltage-source inverters using IGBTs on the basis of experimental results. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 150(3): 70–78, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20015