High-Performance Bridge Modular Switched-Capacitor Converter With Small Component Requirement Based on Output Impedance Analysis for Low Loss

In this paper, a novel multilevel bridge modular switched-capacitor converter is proposed for the application in high voltage gain. Compared with the conventional switched-capacitor converters, it utilizes fewer components (switching device and capacitor) to obtain the same voltage conversion, as well as some advantages including low total power device rating, output capacitor requirement, and low output voltage ripple. In order to illustrate its superiority, an output impedance analysis method is developed, which can comprehensively evaluate a two-phase switched-capacitor converter's steady-state performance by judging its output impedance. The simple formulation developed not only permits optimization of the capacitor sizes to meet several constraints such as a total capacitance or total energy storage limit, but also permits optimization of the switch sizes subject to constraints on total switch conductance or total switch volt–ampere products. Consequently, the output impedance under the optimizations has contributed to the comparison of the latest switched-capacitor converters. As a result, the performance (based on conduction loss) of the proposed converter is proved to be optimum in fast-switching-limit impedance and does well in slow-switching-limit output impedance as well. Simulation and experimental results have validated the principle and properties of this converter and the analysis method.