Journal
IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS
Volume 7, Issue 3, Pages 1883-1898Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/JESTPE.2018.2865597
Keywords
Flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) converter; gallium nitride (GaN); gate driver; multilevel inverter; power factor correction (PFC)
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This paper presents a power factor correction (PFC) front end based on a seven-level flying capacitor multi-level (FCML) boost converter. Compared to the conventional two-level boost converter, the proposed seven-level FCML converter features the use of low-voltage-rated transistors, reduced voltage stress, and high effective switching frequency on the filter inductor. These characteristics of the FCML converter lead to drastic reduction in the filter inductor size while maintaining high efficiency and, therefore, significantly improve the power density of the PFC front end compared to conventional solutions. On the other hand, the small inductance imposes challenges on the PFC control. The dynamics of the seven-level FCML converter has been analyzed, and a feedforward control has been implemented to overcome these challenges. A hardware prototype is designed for universal ac input (90 to 265 Vac), 400-V dc output, and 1.5-kW power rating. Compared to existing solutions, the hardware prototype demonstrates improved efficiency and power density while maintaining high power factor and low THD. A power density of 219 W/in(3) (490 W/in(3) for the power stage) has been achieved, and a peak efficiency of 99.07% has been experimentally verified.
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