With the increasing demand for higher power density power conversion and better dynamic performance, the switching frequency in DC—DC converters continues to be increased to reduce the size and cost of passive components. Increased switching frequency causes increased component current stresses, voltage stresses and switching losses in pulse width modulated (“PWM”) controlled DC—DC converters. ZVS DC—DC converters have lower switching loses because of the ZVS, and thus higher efficiency.
Among ZVS DC—DC converters, the phase-shifted ZVS full bridge is attractive because this allows all switches to operate at ZVS by utilizing the leakage inductance of the transformer and the junction capacitance of the MOSFET switches without adding an auxiliary switch to achieve ZVS. But the complexity of the full bridge is an impediment to its wide application, particularly for lower power levels. For lower power levels, the half-bridge is more attractive due to its simplicity compared to the full bridge.
Conventional symmetric PWM half-bridge DC—DC converters operate at a hard-switching condition. That is, the switches of the converters switch on when gated on regardless of whether the switches are in a zero voltage condition. During the off-time period of the two switches of the half-bridge, the oscillation between leakage inductance of the transformer and the junction capacitance results in energy dissipation and electromagnetic interference (“EMI”) emissions. Hence, the conventional symmetric PWM half-bridge DC—DC converter is not a good candidate for use in DC—DC converters having higher switching frequencies.
One technique that has been proposed to soften the switching behavior of half-bridge switches is the use of complementary (asymmetric) duty cycle control of the switches. Because complementary drive signals are applied to the high side and low side switches, the two switches turn on during a zero voltage condition. After one switch is turned off, energy in the leakage inductance and reflected load current is utilized to charge the junction capacitance of that switch, discharge the junction capacitance of the second switch and force the body diode of the second switch to conduct to recycle energy once the junction capacitance of the second switch has been discharged to zero. During the period that the body diode of the second switch is conducting, the second switch can be turned on at a zero voltage condition.
Complementary duty cycle control in PWM half-bridge DC—DC converters has certain disadvantages. The asymmetric duty cycle for the two switches at static states leads to asymmetric voltage and current stresses on components. When the duty cycle is severely uneven, the current stress on the primary switches and the secondary rectifier(s) is significantly asymmetric. Voltage stress on the secondary side rectifier(s) is also uneven, resulting in degradation of the performance of the DC—DC converter unless higher voltage rated components are used. Moreover, because the power delivered in the two directions in the transformer is uneven, transformer utilization is degraded. Also, the DC gain ratio is nonlinear and a larger duty cycle variation is needed at the same input voltage variation in comparison with symmetric PWM controlled half-bridge DC—DC converters, which makes the DC—DC converter operate further beyond the optimum operating point at a typical input voltage. Hence, complementary (asymmetric) duty cycle control is more suitable for a fixed input voltage than a variable input voltage.
An asymmetric turns-ratio integrated-magnetic structure provides a solution to reduce the duty cycle variation for wide input variations so that a lower voltage rate rectifier can be used to improve performance. But the uneven power delivery in two transformers and the uneven current stress on the switches still present problems.
U.S. Ser. No. 10/272,719 titled “Half-Bridge Zero-Voltage-Switching (ZVS) Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) DC—DC Converted” filed on Oct. 17, 2002 discloses a ZVS half-bridge DC—DC converter based on duty-cycle-shifted (DCS) PWM control that achieves ZVS for all switches of the half-bridge DC—DC converter. The disclosure of U.S. Ser. No. 10/272,719 is incorporated by reference herein. By shifting the duty cycle of the PWM, one of the two main switches achieves ZVS utilizing the transformer leakage inductance and reflected load current for wide load variations. An ungrounded auxiliary switch, which operates at ZVS and zero-current-switching, in the primary of the half-bridge DC—DC converter provides for the use of the energy trapped in the leakage inductance to achieve ZVS of the second switch.