Input filter design for power factor correction circuits

The issues involved in the design of power factor correction circuit input filters are significantly different from those involved in the design of input filters for DC-DC power converters. In many cases, the EMI and power factor requirements are impossible to meet using the existing filtering technology. This paper proposes the use of high-order elliptic filters to achieve the required EMI attenuation and power factor. The new input filter technology provides a significant filter size reduction over the standard filter designs, minimizes the filter-power converter interaction, and maintains a good converter power factor. New active and passive filter damping methods that guarantee optimal filter pole damping, while virtually eliminating damping resistor power dissipation, are proposed. The filter design procedure that makes possible a simple and fast design of filters with an arbitrary number of stages is also presented.