100 KHZ, 2 K W BOOST ZVT-PWM CONVERTER
FOR POWER FACTOR CORRECTION
Cuemava MEXICO
~Wlbq10,1@93
Enrique Maset (l), Enrique Dede
(1) University of Valencia
Computer and Electronic Department
Power Electronics Division
Burjassot (Valencia),24100 -SPAIN-
FAX: 346- 364-2345
Abstract: The power factor correction has
been becoming an important topic in power
electronics field in the recent years. The
classical boost single-phase Power Factor
Correction (PFC) scheme have a serious
problem, while running under CCM operation,
the diode reverse recovery problem causing
significant losses when the output voltage is
quite high. This not only decreases the total
efficiency, but also create thermal and noise
problems. To solve this problem, the zero-
voltage transition (ZVT) technique has been
developed recently, which allow the use of
IGBT, reducing the switching loss and achieve
low conduction loss. A prototype circuit has
been built and tested to verify this new
technique.
I.- INTRODUCTION
Distributed power system and power factor
correction are two important topics of power
conversion.
Off-line switching power supplies have
historically used full-wave rectifier bridge with
simple capacitor input filters to power the DC
input bus. This capacitor draws current only
when the input ac voltage is greater than the
capacitor voltage, happening in short periods
around the line peaks. Thus the line current
waveform is a narrow pulse resulting in poor
102
0-7803-1405-0/93/$3.00
Guichao Hua (2)1 Fred C. Lee (21
(2) Virginia Power Electronics Center
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University
Blacksburg, Virginia, VA 24061
FAX: 703-231-6390
power factor (0.5-0.6) and high total harmonic
distortion (THD).
The high power factor preregulator
described in this paper are interposed between
the input rectifier bridge and the bulk filter
capacitor. Switching at a frequency much
higher than the line, the preregulator is
programmed to draw a half-sinusoid input
current, in phase with the line voltage,
therefore the improvements are:
d High input Power Factor: 0.95 .... 0.99.
d Reduced THD.
d The bulk capacitor of the PFC is located
at high voltage (380 Vdc). Smaller size and
cost.
d The intermediate DC bus can be tightly
regulated without low frequency ripple.
As switching preregulator can be used
different circuits topologies [I]. We used the
Boost topology as the most popular PFC
configuration, because it has a number of
advantages including input current not
chopped (low EMI), direct control of line
current and low stress on power switches.
There are two possible ways to conceive a
distributed power system. The conventional
scheme called two-stage scheme, where the
1993 IEEE
F"
AC-DC converter has a nonisolated PFC front
end followed by a DC-DC converter with
. isolation transformer as show in figure 1.
I1 . 111 I K
F I G 1.- TWO STAGE SCHEME FOR AC-DC
CONVERTERS IN DISTRIBUTED POWER SYSTEM.
The drawback of this scheme is that two
power stage and two control circuits are
needed. The second way is to use the AC-DC
bus regulated with only one-stage PFC circuit,
containing a transformer. In that case the
drawback is that the bulk capacitor is put a
low voltage place, and its volume will increase
for storing the same energy, and also will be a
small low frequency-ripple on the DC bus.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the
preregulator of two cascade stage PFC scheme.
For this propositi we can use a boost PWM
DC-DC conver'ter. But the serious problem of
this boost PFC while running under CCM
operation mode is the boost diode reverse
recovery problem. Since the output voltage is
high, every time when the active switch is
turned on there will be a very high reverse
recovery current flowing through the diode
and the active switch, causing significant
losses, and then the total efficiency decreases,
also appearing noise problems.
To solve this problem, this paper present
the application of a new class of zero voltage
transition (ZVT) PWM converters [2,3],where
by using a resonant network in parallel with
the switches, the proposed converters achieve
zero-voltage switching for both the active and
passive switches without increasing their
voltage and current stress. Soft-switching
operation that can be easily maintained for
wide line range and load range. In the
following section the Boost ZVT-PWM is used
as preregulator PFC and the use of MOSFET
and IGBT's are compared.
11.- SINGLE-ENDED ZVT BOOST PFC
Figure 2 and 3 shows the circuit diagram
and experimental waveforms of the boost ZVT-
PWM. It can be seen that the voltage and
current waveforms are essentially square-wave
except during the turn-on and turn-off
switching intervals, when the zero-voltage-
switching transition takes place.
Due ZVT time intervals can be very short
with respect to the switching cycle, so the
operation of this converter is like boost PWM
during most portions of the cycle. The design
considerations are described in [3,4,5,6] and the
advantages can be summarized as follows:
. v
D t
0
li
Yo
". S
2.- CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF THE BOOST
FIGURE
ZVT-PWMCONVERTER.
W3oft-switching of active and passive switches
is achieved without increasing switch voltage
and current stress, the penalty of circulating
energy is minimal in contrast with QRC
techniques.
6oft-switching can be easily maintained for
wide line range and load range [l],satisfying:
103
 - High efficiency.
- Low EM1 noise.

where tD is the time delay between Sa,, and S

gate signal. From this inequality it can seen
that when Ii decreases, ATol also decreases and
AT,, remains constant. Therefore, as long as the
inequality is satisfied at full load and low line,
soft-switchingoperation will be ensured for the
whole load and line range. This feature is show
in figure 4.

.The switching frequency is constant, so the

design optimization is easily attainable.

The feature of soft-switching for both the

transistor and rectifier diode is used for high-
voltage conversion applications, where the
rectifier diode suffer from severe reverse
recovery problems. So we use this technique in
PFC boost circuit attain:

FIGURE 4: (A) LIGHT-LOAD, (B) FULL-LOAD

FROMTOP TO BOlTOM: vGS-AUX( lOV/DIV),
VGS-MAIN( IOV/DIV), VDS( 1ooV/DIV)

111.- HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION

A prototype circuit has been built to verify

the advantages of ZVT technique, which is
show in figure 5. The power stage selected is a
boost PFC circuit in order to solve the classical
reverse recovery diode problems avoiding high
switching losses, high EMI noise and high
device stress.

Figure 6 shows the efficiency measurement

FIGURE3: EXPERIMENTAL WAVEFORMS.
FROMTOP TO BOTTOM: vGS-AUX(1ov/DIV),
VGS-MAIN( 1ov/DIV), v D S ( 1~v/DIV),IDS(2A/DIV).
of the circuit using MOSFET or IGBT as power
switch. Comparing the performance of IGBT's
version with MOSFET's version, we have a
reduction of the overall efficiency in IGBT's
version but the efficiency in that case remain

104
between (96.5% ... 97.3%) at low line and excessive device current stress and intolerable
(98.2%...98.4%) at full line (360 Vac European capacitive turn-on loss. Now ZVT technique
line voltage) with a considerable reduction of use the energy stored in the external capacitor
the cost. to achieve the zero-voltage turn-on [3],
reducing the turn-on losses.

The line current is controlled with average

current control [6] using a UC3854 IC. The
output of this IC (pinl6) should be sent
directly to the gate drive of the main MOSFET,
through one driver circuit (TSC4420). Also the
rising edge of this pulse triggers a monostable
circuit (1/2 CD74HC123) whose pulse width is
set to be: Ts-Tdelay, where Ts is the switching
period and Tdelay represents the delay time
between S and S1 control signals, since the
falling edge of this monostable's output is used
to trigger another monostable, in order to set
the pulse width of the auxiliary switch (Sl), in
FIGURE 5 PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A accordance with the equation (I). This simple
ZKW, loOKHz BOOSTZVT-PWMPFC. control circuit is shown in figure 7.

This remarkable maximum overall efficiency Gate S

of 98% at full load and high line, represent an lSC4420 +
improvement of 2-3 % compared to the PWM
version operating at the same input and output
conditions. Also it can seen that the waveforms
in the ZVT-PWM version are noise free,
reducing the circuit EM1 noise and improving
the circuit reliability.

This solution is possible due the use of ZVT

technique because, when IGBT is used in order I I
Oat. 51
to reduce the turn-off loss of the IGBT device, 0 TSC4420 b

a considerably large external capacitor across

IGBT is often used to soften the switching
process, causing, without ZVT technique, FIGURE 7: CONTROL CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF THE
PFC CIRCUIT

9, 1-.... .<.
j +
..............................................
<I, vac
. . . . . ,. . . . . . .. .....................
Vlt

1.. ....... ,;..........;. ........ .:. ......... ~..........I

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , ..............

-. i
:
. . . . . . ......../i........ : . . . $6'
. . .

Y!!

97 - . ... ./-l+:!!
.........................................

9(
_ .................................... 96

........................
: 4
FIGURE 6: EFFICIENCY :RSWITCH.

105
Table 1 summarizes the power factor and the 1V.-SUMMARY
efficiency for different line and load conditions,
measured with an ac power analyzer ( Voltech In this paper, a novel ZVT technique is
PM1000) : applied to solve high device stress and high
switching losses problems of boost PWM
Vline (Vrms) PF. U Io (A) converter as front-end PFC converter of two
182 0.996 97.1 3.4 stage scheme in distributed power systems. So,
222 0.997 97.4 5.2 at low line where the current is high, the ZVT
250 0.996 98.1 5.4 technique shows significant improvement of
the efficiency, which will increase the power
The oscillograph of the waveforms is shown density.
in Fig.8. It can seen that the line current has
been well controlled to follow the line voltage. IGBT devices are recommended for their
low conduction loss and reduced price,
compared to MOSFETs at the same voltage
rating. The worst power stage efficiency is
above 96% at low line (180 Vac European line
range).

V.- REFERENCES

[1].- Lloyd Dixon,Jr,"High Power Factor

Preregulators for Off-Line Power Supplies",
Unitrode Seminar Handbook$EM-600,1988.

[2].-G.Hua, F.C.Lee, "Novel zero-voltage-transition

PWM converters," High Frequency Power
Conversion Conf. Proc. 199Lpp.244-251.

[3].- G.Hua, Yiming Jiang, F.C.Lee, "Analysis,

design, and experiments of ZVT-PWM boost
converter",Virginia Power electronic Center
SeminarJ 992.

[4].-Claudio de Sa e Silva,"Power Factor Correction

with The UC3854", Unitrode Application Note.

FIGURE 8: EXPERIMENTAL WAVEFORMS. [5].- Chen Zhou, Milan Jovanovic,"Design Trade-off

FROMTOP TO BOTTOM: JANE CURRENT (2A/DIV), in Continuous Current-Mode Controlled Boost
RECTIFIED LINE VOLTAGE(5ov/DIv) Power-Factor Correction Circuits", HFPC'92 pp.209-
219.

[6].-F.A.Huliehel, F.C.Lee and B.H.Cho,"Small-

Signal Modelling of the Single-phase Boost High
Power Factor Converter with Constant Frequency
Control",Power Electronics Specialist Conference
Proc. 1992.

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