Power losses reduction in switching power converters
AssigneeOne More Time LLC
InventorDonald Partridge
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Embodiments of the invention provide methods and apparatuses for concurrently eliminating or substantially reducing two or more switching losses in an inverter switching circuit. Embodiments of the invention concurrently reduce multiple types of switching losses under hard switching mode and soft switching mode for active switching devices and diodes. In one embodiment of the invention, the voltage across a switching device is substantially reduced during switch turn-off and/or turn-on time, and also maintained at a substantially reduced level throughout some or all of the tail current loss time of the switching device. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.
Claims32
A power switching circuit, comprising:
- a switching device;
- a voltage source electrically coupled to the switching device, the voltage source providing a normal operational voltage for the power switching circuit;
- and
- a switching voltage reduction mechanism for substantially reducing a voltage across the switching device, relative to the normal operational voltage, during a turn-off time of the switching device, the mechanism maintaining a substantially reduced voltage across the switching device during at least a portion of a tail current loss time of the switching device.
A method, comprising:
- substantially reducing a voltage across a switching device of a power switching circuit, relative to a normal operational voltage for the power switching circuit, during a turn-on time of the switching device, the normal operational voltage provided by a voltage source of the power switching circuit;
- and
- maintaining the voltage across the switching device at a substantially reduced level during at least a portion of a tail current loss time of the switching device.
An apparatus, comprising:
- means for substantially reducing a voltage across a switching device of a power switching circuit, relative to a normal operational voltage for the power switching circuit, during a turn-on time of the switching device, the normal operational voltage provided by a voltage source of the power switching circuit;
- and
- means for maintaining the voltage across the switching device at a substantially reduced level during at least a portion of a tail current loss time of the switching device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.