Browsing by Author "Fei, Chao"

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    Interleaved converters with integrated magnetics
    (United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2020-09-29)
    Three-phase interleaved LLC and CLLC resonant converters, with integrated magnetics, are described. In various examples, the primary sides of the phases in the converters rely upon a half-bridge configuration and include resonant networks coupled to each other in delta-connected or common Y-node configurations. The secondary sides of the phases can rely upon a full-bridge configurations and are coupled in parallel. In one example, the transformers of the phases in the converters are integrated into one magnetic core. By changing the interleaving structure between the primary and secondary windings in the transformers, resonant inductors of the phases can also be integrated into the same magnetic core. A multi-layer PCB can be used as the windings for the integrated magnetics.
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    Microcontroller (MCU) Based Simplified Optimal Trajectory Control (SOTC) for High-Frequency LLC Resonant Converters
    Fei, Chao (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-01)
    The LLC resonant converter has been widely used as a DC-DC converter due to its high efficiency, high power density and hold-up capability in power supplies for communication systems, computers and consumer electronics. Use of the high-frequency LLC converter has also been increasing in recent years due to its high power density and integrated magnetics, which reduce the total cost. With the fast development of wideband gap devices and novel magnetic materials, the trend of pushing switching frequency higher continues. However, the control characteristics of the LLC resonant converter are much more complex than that of the PWM converter due to the dynamics of the resonant tank. This paper employs state-trajectory analysis to describe and analyze the behavior of the resonant tank. Control methods based on state-trajectory analysis were used to solve the challenges in the control of the LLC resonant converter, including unpredictable dynamics, burst mode for light-load efficiency, soft start-up and short circuit protection. Additionally, digital controllers are gradually taking the place of analog controllers in the control of the LLC resonant converter due to the advantages of the digital controllers over the analog controllers, such as their ability to be flexible and re-configurable, capable of non-linear control, and able to communicate with other controllers. Among the digital controllers, cost-effective microcontrollers (MCU) are preferred for industrial applications. Because of the advantages of the state-trajectory control and the industrial preference in the cost-effective digital controllers, it would be of great benefit to apply state-trajectory control to high-frequency LLC converters with cost-effective digital controllers. This thesis investigates the impact of digital delay on state-trajectory control. Simplified Optimal Trajectory Control (SOTC) for LLC converters is further simplified so that SOTC can be achieved with cost-effective digital controllers. Furthermore, the limitations caused by digital controller are explained in detail, and methods are proposed to apply the SOTC to high frequency LLC converter is proposed. A detailed analysis of fast load transient response, soft start-up, burst mode for light-load efficiency and synchronous rectification (SR) driving is provided. Multi-step SOTC for fast load transient response is proposed to apply cost-effective digital controllers to high-frequency LLC converters; SOTC for soft start-up with only sensing Vo is proposed to minimized the impact of digital delay on state-trajectory control; SOTC for burst mode with multi-step is proposed to eliminate the limitation of minimum off-time caused by digital controllers in constant burst-on time control; a generalized adaptive SR driving method using the ripple counter concept is proposed to significantly reduce controller resource utilization for the SR control of high-frequency LLC converters. The whole control system is demonstrated on a 500kHz 1kW 400V/12V LLC converter with a 60MHz MCU, which integrates all the proposed control methods.
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    Multi-step simplified optimal trajectory control (SOTC) based on only Vo and I load
    (United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2018-09-11)
    A resonant power converter is disclosed with a driving circuit generating a switching signal connecting power to a resonant tank circuit, with a voltage monitoring circuit measuring a voltage output and a load current. A micro-controller is operable with a control circuit for multiple step sampling with the switching signal at a switching frequency to settle the resonant circuit determined from the voltage output and load current. A fast load transient response at a high frequency with the resonant circuit provides the multiple step sampling to ensure enough time for micro-controller to calculate. Optimal trajectory control facilitates a burst mode of high frequency with the resonant circuit using adaptive multiple step sampling for an on-time to extend the burst operation range. A soft start-up process uses the micro-controller processing in multiple stages.
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    Optimization of LLC Resonant Converters: State-trajectory Control and PCB based Magnetics
    Fei, Chao (Virginia Tech, 2018-05-09)
    With the fast development of information technology (IT) industry, the demand and market volume for off-line power supplies keeps increasing, especially those for desktop, flat-panel TV, telecommunication, computer server and datacenter. An off-line power supply normally consists of electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter, power factor correction (PFC) circuit and isolated DC/DC converter. Isolated DC/DC converter occupies more than half of the volume in an off-line power supply and takes the most control responsibilities, so isolated DC/DC converter is the key aspect to improve the overall performance and reduce the total cost for off-line power supply. On the other hand, of all the power supplies for industrial applications, those for the data center servers are the most performance driven, energy and cost conscious due to the large electricity consumption. The total power consumption of today's data centers is becoming noticeable. Moreover, with the increase in cloud computing and big data, energy use of data centers is expected to continue rapidly increasing in the near future. It is very challenging to design isolated DC/DC converters for datacenters since they are required to provide low-voltage high-current output and fast transient response. The LLC resonant converters have been widely used as the DC-DC converter in off-line power supplies and datacenters due to its high efficiency and hold-up capability. Using LLC converters can minimize switching losses and reduce electromagnetic interference. Almost all the high-end offline power supplies employs LLC converters as the DC/DC converter. But there are three major challenges in LLC converters. Firstly, the control characteristics of the LLC resonant converters are very complex due to the dynamics of the resonant tank. This dissertation proposes to implement a special LLC control method, state-trajectory control, with a low-cost microcontroller (MCU). And further efforts have been made to integrate all the state-trajectory control function into one MCU for high-frequency LLC converters, including start-up and short-circuit protection, fast transient response, light load efficiency improvement and SR driving. Secondly, the transformer in power supplies for IT industry is very bulky and it is very challenging to design. By pushing switching frequency up to MHz with gallium nitride (GaN) devices, the magnetics can be integrated into printed circuit board (PCB) windings. This dissertation proposes a novel matrix transformer structure and its design methodology. On the other hand, shielding technique can be employed to suppress the CM noise for PCB winding transformer. This dissertation proposes a novel shielding technique, which not only suppresses CM noise, but also improves the efficiency. The proposed transformer design and shielding technique is applied to an 800W 400V/12V LLC converter design. Thirdly, the LLC converters have sinusoidal current shape due to the nature of resonance, which has larger root mean square (RMS) of current, as well as larger conduction loss, compared to pulse width modulation (PWM) converter. This dissertation employs three-phase interleaved LLC converters to reduce the circulating energy by inter-connecting the three phases in certain way, and proposed a novel magnetic structure to integrated three inductors and three transformers into one magnetic core. By pushing switching frequency up to 1MHz, all the magnetics can be implemented with 4-layer PCB winding. Additional 2-layer shielding can be integrated to reduce CM noise. The proposed magnetic structure is applied to a 3kW 400V/12V LLC converter. This dissertation solves the challenges in analysis, digital control, magnetic design and EMI in high-frequency DC/DC converters in off-line power supplies. With the academic contribution in this dissertation, GaN devices can be successfully applied to high-frequency DC/DC converters with MHz switching frequency to achieve high efficiency, high power density, simplified but high-performance digital control and automatic manufacturing. The cost will be reduced and the performance will be improved significantly.