TONG Qiang, ZHANG Dong Lai and ZHANG Nai Tong

2nd International Conference on Electronic & Mechanical Engineering and Information Technology (EMEIT-2012)
Research on Resonance Soft Switching DC/DC Topologies Used in

Cascaded Converters
TONG Qiang1, a, ZHANG Dong Lai2,b and ZHANG Nai Tong3,c
1
Shenzhen Academy of Aerospace Technology, Shenzhen 518057, China
2
Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
3
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
a
allentq@126.com, bzhangdonglai@263.net, cntzhang@hit.edu.cn
Keywords: DC/DC converter; resonance soft switching; high efficiency; cascaded topology
Abstract. A new ZVS(zero voltage switching) Push-Pull converter is proposed and compared with
other two high efficiency DC/DC topologies. All of them are suitable for the two stage cascaded
converter. In order to simplify the circuit and reduce the size, they work in the open loop control
mode. Meanwhile, for improving the efficiency, extra resonant inductor and capacitance, or
parasitic inductance and capacitance are utilized to realize the soft switching. This paper describes
the working principle of the three kinds of topologies, analyzes the conditions to realize soft
switching, and gives the design methods. At last, prototypes of the three converters are built, and the
efficiency is compared in experiments.
Introduction
In a DC/DC converter which has multiple outputs, wide range input voltage or great voltage
difference between input and output voltage, the single stage topology always has the problems
such as big voltage or current stress on components, low efficiency, terrible performance, etc.
Therefore, the two stage cascaded topology are chosen[1-4]. The first stage topology converts the
input voltage into a more stable intermediate bus voltage. Then, the second stage topology converts
the intermediate bus voltage into the final output voltage[5]. The two stage cascaded topology can
overcome the shortcoming of the single stage topology. It makes the design of each stage topology
more flexible. However, efficiency is a key issue needed to be focused on. The efficiency of the two
cascaded topology is equal to the product of the two stages. Even if each stage topology can reach
90%, only 81% of the total efficiency will achieve. Since the second stage topology is usually the
high efficient POL(Point of Load), how to design high efficiency first stage topology becomes
crucial.
A two stage cascaded power supply is built here. The input voltage is 28V and the output voltage
are 5V and ±12V, each output voltage is required to be controlled independently. The total power is
30W. The first stage topology generates an isolated intermediate bus voltage which is lower than the
input voltage. Then three independent POLs generate the final output voltages. A new ZVS Push-Pull
topology is proposed and compared with the other two candidates.
A New ZVS Push-Pull Topology

The push-pull topology is widely used in the small and medium power DC-DC converter, it has
advantages of good magnetic utilization of transformer, simple driving circuit and higher reliability.
The relationship between the output voltage and input voltage of the push-pull topology is
VOUT = 2VIN  D  N . (1)
Where, D-the duty cycle of the switch in primary side;
N-the transformer turns ratio.
When the converter works in open-loop, the duty cycle of each MOSFET in the primary side is
nearly 50% duty cycle, which makes that VOUT = VIN  N in Eq.1. The output voltage is decided by
Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

© the authors
2204
the transformer turns ratio. Since the switching device keep on during most time in a period, the
secondary side rectifier circuit doesn’t need any output inductance to store energy. The output
voltage of the converter is affected only by the input voltage rather than the load.
The disadvantage of the push-pull topology is that the MOSFET works in hard switching
condition, which reduces the efficiency of the converter. By utilizing the equivalent inductor of the
transformer and the output capacitor of the MOSFET, zero voltage switching of the MOSFET can
be realized. So the efficiency of the topology is improved. The dead time of the two MOSFETs
should be set carefully, when the drain to source voltage of the MOSFET resonate to zero, the gate
to source voltage immediately turns high, so the zero voltage soft switching can be achieved.
Fig.1 The ZVS push-pull topology
Fig.2 The waveform of drain-gate, gate-source and current of MOSFET

The yellow curve in Fig.2 is the gate-source waveform of MOSFET, the green one is
drain-source waveform and the pink one is the primary current waveform. From the figure we see
that after the drain-source voltage drops to zero, the gate-source gets to high level to turns the
MOSFET on, ZVS is realized.
The dead time should be dependant to the period of resonance. If the dead time is too short, the
drain-source voltage of the MOSFET hasn’t reached to the zero voltage before the gate-source
voltage turns high. On the contrary, if the dead time is too long, there isn’t sufficient power
transferred to the secondary side, so the output capacitors cannot keep the value of the output
voltage.
Zero voltage zero current push-pull topology

The zero voltage zero current (ZVSZCS) push-pull topology is shown in figure 3, the LC
resonant tank on the secondary side allows the primary and secondary side current to achieve
resonation to realize zero current switching(ZCS) of the MOSFET in the primary side. Using the
leakage inductance of the transformer, the added inductor on the secondary side and the junction
capacitance of MOSFET, ZVS of the MOSFET in the primary side can be realized.

© the authors
2205
Fig.3 The zero voltage zero current resonant push-pull topology

The corresponding relationship of the resonant frequency and the resonant devices is
1 (2)
fR =
2π LR ⋅ CR
Where: LR——the equivalent resonant inductor in the topology,
CR——Resonant capacitor
In order to make the drain-source voltage resonate to zero within the dead time, we have to
ensure that the conduction time of MOSFET is TON ≥ π LR ⋅ CR .Fig.4 shows the experimental
waveforms. The yellow curve is the gate-source waveform of MOSFET, the green one is
drain-source waveform and the pink one is the primary current waveform. It can be seen that before
the MOSFET turns on, its drain-source voltage has resonated to zero, so ZVS is achieved. Before
the MOSFET turns off, ZCS is achieved due to the primary side current resonating to zero.
Fig.4 The zero voltage zero current waveform
LLC topology
LLC topology is another topology which is widely used in high efficiency DC-DC converters. It
is shown in Fig.5. By setting reasonable parameters of the resonant topology, the MOSFET works
in ZVS.
Fig.5 The LLC topology

© the authors
2206
The experimental waveforms are shown in Fig.6 and Fig.7. The purple curve is the gate-source
waveform of MOSFET, the yellow one is the drain-source waveform of MOSFET. Drain-source
voltage has been resonated to zero before the gate-source voltage turns high, so the ZVS is
achieved.
Fig.6 The waveform of zero voltage switching

The primary side current waveform is shown in Fig.7. The blue curve is the primary side current
waveform, the yellow one is the drain-source waveform of the MOSFET. It can be seen that the
current lags the voltage applied to the resonant network, which allows the MOSFETs to be turned
on with zero voltage. The MOSFET turns on while the voltage across the MOSFET is zero by
flowing current through the anti-parallel diode.
Fig.7 The waveform of zero current switching
Experimental comparison
The three converters analyzed above are all built as the first stage topology, efficiencies are
tested under the same working condition. In this application, the input voltage is 28V, the secondary
bus voltage is nearly 18V and the output power is about 35W. The resonance parameters have been
designed, the MOSFET are IRLR3110, whose on-resistance is 14 mΩ. The rectifier diode is
STPS5L60, whose conduction voltage is 0.47V.The output capacitance of IRLR3110 is 180pF. For
the topology shown in Fig.1, Only the output capacitor of the MOSFET and the parasitic inductance
of the transformer are used to resonate. The turns ratio of the main transformer is 8:6. In the
topology shown in figure 3, the resonant inductor and the resonant capacitor of on the secondary
side of the transformer is 3.2uH and 88uF. The turns ratio of the main transformer is 8:6. In the
topology shown in figure 5, the resonant inductor and resonant capacitor is 1.3uH and 200nF, the
main transformer turns ratio is 4:6.

© the authors
2207
Tab.1 Comparison of efficiency

Input Input Output Output
Topology efficiency
voltage[V] current[A] voltage[V] current[A]
ZVS push-pull
27.85 1.438 18.60 1.948 90.5%
topology
ZVS ZCS push-pull
27.88 1.337 18 1.756 84.8%
topology
LLC 27.93 1.355 16.38 1.886 81.6%
It can be seen that the switching loss rather than conduction loss dominate in the converters
whose input voltage is low and output power is not high.
Although ZCS can be achieved in the ZVSZCS push-pull topology compared to the ZVS
push-pull topology, the amplitude of the current waveform is large due to the resonant, which
increases the conduct loss. Meanwhile, the extra resonant capacitor and inductor and the MOSFET
driving circuit also consume power. The efficiency is further decreased.
Conclusion
Three candidates of the first stage topology in a two stage cascaded converter are analyzed and
compared in theory and experiment. It shows that ZVS push-pull topology proposed in this paper
has the highest efficiency, the simplest structure, and is suitable for the front stage of the two stage
cascaded DC/DC converter in small and medium power.
Reference
[1] Zheng Xinxin, Xiao Lan. Design and Modeling of Two-stage Wide-input DC/DC Converter.
Power Electronics, 2012, 46(2):66-68.
[2] Huang Jianfeng, Ma Hao. Investigation on Buck and Push-pull Cascade DC-DC Converter[J].
Power Electronics, 2008, 42(6):30-32.
[3] BoYang, Peng Xu, Lee F C. Rang winding for Wide Input Range Front End DC/DC Converter.
IEEE, APEC’01. 2001:476-480.
[4] Bo Yang, Lee F C, Zhang A J. LLC Resonant Converter for Front End DC/DC Conversion.
IEEE, APEC 2002, 2002:1108-1112.
[5] Tong Qiang, Zhang Donglai, Xu Dianguo. Design of a Two-phase Point-of-load Power Supply
Based on ZL2006. Power Electronics, 2012,44(8):75-81.

© the authors
2208

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2nd International Conference on Electronic & Mechanical Engineering and Information Technology (EMEIT-2012)

Research on Resonance Soft Switching DC/DC Topologies Used in

A New ZVS Push-Pull Topology

Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

Fig.1 The ZVS push-pull topology

Fig.2 The waveform of drain-gate, gate-source and current of MOSFET

Zero voltage zero current push-pull topology

Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

Fig.3 The zero voltage zero current resonant push-pull topology

Fig.4 The zero voltage zero current waveform

Fig.5 The LLC topology

Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

Fig.6 The waveform of zero voltage switching

Fig.7 The waveform of zero current switching

Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

Tab.1 Comparison of efficiency

Published by Atlantis Press, Paris, France.

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