LECTURE 14 (Ch.

5)
DC-DC CONVERTERS
ECE 452
Power Electronics
1
Switching Mode Regulators
DC converters can be used as switching-mode
regulators to convert a dc voltage, normally
unregulated, to a regulated dc output voltage.

The regulation is normally achieved by PWM at
a fixed frequency.

The elements of switching-mode regulators are
shown in the following figure.
2
3
Control voltage v
e
is obtained by comparing the
output voltage with its desired value.


The v
cr
can be compared with a sawtooth
voltage v
r
to generate the PWM control signal.


4
There are four basic topologies of switching
regulators:

Buck regulators

Boost regulators

Buck-Boost regulators

Cuk regulators

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Buck Regulators
In a buck regulator, the average output voltage
V
a
is less than the input voltage V
s
.
s s a
kV V
T
t
V
1
6
7
The buck regulator is simple and requires only
one transistor.

The di/dt of the load current is limited by the
inductor L.

The input current is discontinuous and a
smoothing input filter is required.

The buck regulator provides a one polarity
output voltage and unidirectional output current.

8
Boost Regulator
In a boost regulator, the output voltage is
greater than the input voltage.
k
V
V
t
T
V
s
s a

1
2
9
10
A boost regulator can step up the output voltage
without a transformer.

Due to a single transistor, it has a high
efficiency.

The input current is continuous; however, a high
peak current has to flow through the power
transistor.


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The output voltage is very sensitive to changes
in duty cycle k and it might be difficult to
stabilize.

The average output current is less than the
average inductor current by a factor (1-k).

A much higher current will flow through the
filter capacitor.
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The end result is that the L and C are much
larger than those of a buck regulator.

13
Buck-Boost Regulator
A buck-boost regulator provides an output
voltage which may be less than or greater than
the input voltage.



The output voltage polarity is opposite to that of
the input voltage.






s a
V
k
k
V

1
14
k Va = [-k/(1-k)]Vs
0 0
0.1 -0.111111111
0.2 -0.25
0.3 -0.428571429
0.4 -0.666666667
0.5 -1
0.6 -1.5
0.7 -2.333333333
0.8 -4
0.9 -9
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Thus, a buck-boost regulator provides output
voltage polarity reversal without a transformer.


The regulator is also known as an inverting
regulator.

17
Limitations of Single Stage
Conversion
The regulators use only one transistor.

They employ a one stage conversion, and
require inductors or capacitors for energy
transfer.

Due to current-handling limitation of a single
transistor, the output power of these regulators
is small, tens of watts.
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At a higher current, the size of these
components increases, with increased
component losses, and the efficiency decreases.

In addition, there is no isolation between the
input and output voltage, which is highly
desirable.

19
For high power applications, multistage
conversions are used:

A dc voltage is converted to ac by an inverter.

The ac output is isolated by a transformer and then
converted to dc by a rectifier.

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Comparison of Regulators
There is no change in the position of the main
switch for the buck and buck-boost regulators.


There is no change in the position of the main
switch for the boost and Cuk regulators.

21
In section 5.8 we showed the voltage equation
for the regulators with the assumptions that
there were no resistances associated with
inductors and capacitors.


However, such resistances though small may
reduce the gain significantly.
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23
The magnetic loss increases with the square of
frequency

However, a higher frequency reduces the size of
inductors for the same value of ripple current and
filtering requirement.

The design of dc-dc converters requires a
compromise among switching frequency,
inductor size, capacitor size, and switching losses.
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