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1 INTRODUCTION
Power electronic systems are virtually in every electronic device. For example,
around us:
DC/DC converters are used in most mobile devices (mobile phones) to
maintain the voltage at a fixed value whatever the charge level of the
battery is. These converters are also used for electronic isolation and
power factor correction.
AC/AC converters are used to change either the voltage level or the
frequency (international power adapters, light dimmer). In power
distribution networks AC/AC converters may be used to exchange power
between utility frequency 50 Hz and 60 Hz power grids.
Soft switching for the power devices can be achieved by either zero-
voltage switching (ZVS) or zero-current switching (ZCS). ZVS consists of
turning on the switches while the voltage across them is zero. ZCS consists of
turning off the switches when the current through them is zero .Soft switching
has been proven to be an effective means of reducing switching losses and for
attaining higher overall efficiencies.
This switching on the other hand combines the advantage of
conventional pwm converters and resonant converters .The soft- switching
waveforms are similar to conventional pwm converters except that the rising and
falling edges of waveforms are smoothened with no transient spikes. Here
resonance phenomenon is exhibited and it is allowed to occur just before and
during the turn-off process so as to create ZVS - ZCS condition .Further the
advantage of soft-switching is, it can be operated at high frequency and it
suppresses Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI).
• Semiconductor devices have non-zero turn-on and turn-off times and thus
there is a finite time during the transitions wherein the devices are conducting a
significant current while a large voltage is applied across it. This results in large
energy dissipation. This energy loss increases with increasing frequency.
• At high frequencies, high dv/dt and di/dt induce voltage and current
oscillations in parasitic capacitors and inductors during switching transitions.
These oscillations result in higher peak current and voltage in the devices and
thus the switching loss increases. Furthermore, these oscillations create EMI
noise, which can interfere with other parts of the circuit or surrounding
electronic equipment.
• When a device is turned on while having a voltage across it, the energy stored
in the parasitic capacitance across the switch is dissipated in it. This loss
increases with the frequency and is proportional to the square of the voltage
across the device before turn-on.
Soft-switching techniques force the switch voltage or current to zero before the
device switching, thus avoiding current and voltage overlap during the
switching transition.
• Lower switching losses due to smaller overlap of switch voltage and current.
• Lower dv/dt and di/dt and thus lower voltage spike and EMI emissions.
Zero-voltage switching of a MOSFET also causes its body diode to operate with
zero-voltage switching. This can eliminate the switching loss associated with
reverse recovery of the slow body diode‚ and improve the reliability of circuits
that forward-bias this diode. Zero-voltage switching can prevent both diode
reverse recovery and semiconductor output capacitances from inducing
switching loss in MOSFETs .Zero-voltage switching can prevent both diode
reverse recovery and semiconductor output capacitances from inducing
switching loss in MOSFETs.