• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.505-507
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• 2008

A conventional active-clamp forward (ACF) converter is a favorable candidate in low-to-medium power applications. However, the switches suffer from high voltage stress, i.e., sum of the input voltage and the reset capacitor voltage. Therefore, it is not suitable for high input voltage applications such as a front-end converter of which the input voltage is about 400-$V_{dc}$. To solve this problem, three-switch ACF (TS-ACF) converter, which employs two main switches and one auxiliary switch with low voltage stress, is proposed. Utilizing low-voltage rated switches, the proposed converter is promising for high input voltage applications with high efficiency and low cost.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.186-196
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• 2013

This paper presents a low voltage-stress AC-linked charge equalizing system for balancing the energy in a serially connected, valve-regulated lead acid battery string using a modular converter that consists of multiple transformers coupled together. Each converter was coupled through an AC-linked bus to increase the overall energy transfer efficiency of the system and to eliminate the problem of the unbalanced charging of batteries. Previous solutions are based on centralized and modularized topologies. A centralized topology requires a redesign of the hardware and related components. It also faces a high voltage stress when the number of batteries is expanded. Modularized solutions use low-voltage-stress, double-stage, DC-linked topologies which leads to poor energy transfer efficiency. The proposed solution uses a low-voltage stress, AC-linked, modularized topology that makes adding more batteries easier. It also has a better energy transfer efficiency. To ensure that the charge equalization system operates smoothly and safely charges batteries, a small intelligent microcontroller was used in the control section. The efficiency of this charge equalization system is 85%, which is 21% better than other low-voltage-stress DC-linked charging techniques. The validity of this approach was confirmed by experimental results.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2018

This paper presents a single switch, high step-up, non-isolated dc-dc converter suitable for renewable energy applications. The proposed converter is composed of a coupled inductor, a passive clamp circuit, a switched capacitor and voltage lift circuits. The passive clamp recovers the leakage inductance energy of the coupled inductor and limits the voltage spike on the switch. The configuration of the passive clamp and switched capacitor circuit increases the voltage gain. A wide continuous conduction mode (CCM) operation range, a low turn ratio for the coupled inductor, low voltage stress on the switch, switch turn on under almost zero current switching (ZCS), low voltage stress on the diodes, leakage inductance energy recovery, high efficiency and a high voltage gain without a large duty cycle are the benefits of this converter. The steady state operation of the converter in the continuous conduction mode (CCM) and discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) is discussed and analyzed. A 200W prototype converter with a 28V input and a 380V output voltage is implemented and tested to verify the theoretical analysis.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.157-161
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• 2020

High voltage gain converters are essential for distributed power generation systems with renewable energy sources, such as fuel cells and solar cells, because of their low voltage characteristics. This paper introduces a novel nonisolated DC-DC converter topology developed by combining an inverting buck-boost converter and voltage multipliers. In the proposed converter, the input voltage is connected in series with the output, and the majority of the input power is directly delivered to the load. The voltage multipliers are stacked in series to achieve high step-up voltage gain. The voltage stress across all of the switches and capacitors can be significantly reduced. As a result, the switches with low voltage ratings can be used to achieve high efficiency and low cost. To verify the validity of the proposed topology, a 360-W prototype converter is built to obtain the experimental results.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2019.07a
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• pp.83-85
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• 2019

The use of high voltage gain converters is essential for the distributed power generation systems with renewable energy sources such as the fuel cells and solar cells due to their low voltage characteristics. In this paper, a high voltage gain topology combining cascode Inverting Buck-Boost converter and voltage multiplier structure is introduced. In proposed converter, the input voltage is connected in series at the output, the portion of input power is directly delivered to the load which results in continuous input current. In addition, the voltage multiplier stage stacked in proper manner is not only enhance high step-up voltage gain ratio but also significantly reduce the voltage stress across all semiconductor devices and capacitors. As a result, the high current-low voltage switches can be employed for higher efficiency and lower cost. In order to show the feasibility of the proposed topology, the operation principle is presented and the steady-state characteristic is analyzed in detail. A 380W-40/380V prototype converter was built to validate the effectiveness of proposed converter.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1187-1194
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• 2017

In this paper, a high step-up DC-DC PWM converter with continuous input current and low voltage stress is presented for renewable energy application. The proposed converter is composed of a boost converter integrated with an auxiliary step-up circuit. The auxiliary circuit uses an additional coupled inductor and a balancing capacitor with voltage doubler and switching capacitor technique to achieve high step-up voltage gain with an appropriate switch duty cycle. The switched capacitors are charged in parallel and discharged in series by the coupled inductor, stacking on the output capacitor. In the proposed converter, the voltage stress on the main switch is clamped, so a low voltage switch with low ON resistance can be used to reduce the conduction loss which results in the efficiency improvement. A detailed discussion on the operating principle and steady-state analyses are presented in the paper. To justify the theoretical analysis, experimental results of a 200W 40/400V prototype is presented. In addition, the conducted electromagnetic emissions are measured which shows a good EMC performance.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.10
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• pp.1432-1441
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• 2012

In this study, an improved LCCT(Inductor-Capacitor-Capacitor-Trans) Z-source inverter(Improved LCCT ZSI) with characteristics of Quasi Z-source inverter(QZSI) and LCCT Z-source inverter(LCCT ZSI) is proposed. The proposed inverter can also reduce the voltage stress and input current/capacitor voltage ripples compared with conventional LCCT ZSI and Quasi ZSI. A two winding trans in Z-impedance network of the conventional LCCT ZSI is replaced by a three winding trans in the proposed inverter. To verify the validity of the proposed inverter, a DSP controlled hardware was made and PSIM simulation was executed for each method. Comparing the current and voltage ripples of each method under the condition of input DC voltage 70[V] and output AC voltage 76[Vrms], the input current and capacitor voltage ripple factors of the proposed inverter were low as 11[%] and 1.4[%] respectively. And, for generation of the same output AC voltage of each method, voltage stress of the proposed inverter was low as 175[V] under the condition of duty ratio D=0.15. As mentioned above, we could know that the proposed inverter have the characteristics of low voltage stress, low ripple factor and low operation duty ratio compared with the conventional methods. Finally, the efficiency according to load change/duty ratio and the transient state characteristics were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.57-66
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• 2012

When typical Z-source DC/AC inverter(ZSI) is operated in high voltage gain area, because of its high duty ratio, voltage and current stress in Z-network of typical ZSI are increased. This paper proposes a new switched trans ZSI(STZSI) with two switched trans cells which consist of one trans and two diodes. To confirm the operation performance of the proposed system, the PSIM simulation is performed for typical ZSI, switched inductor ZSI and the proposed STZSI. Voltage / current stress and transient state characteristics of each method are compared under the condition of DC input voltage 100[V] and output phase voltage 66[Vrms]. As a result, we confirmed that transient state of the proposed STZSI is short compared with the conventional ZSI because the high voltage gain is obtained using the same duty ratio, also a low duty ratio is required for the same output voltage. Finally, we could know the proposed system have low voltage and current stress in Z-network compared with the conventional ZSI.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 2006

This paper presents the theory, design, fabrication and characterization of the novel low actuation voltage capacitive shunt RF-MEMS switch using a corrugated membrane with HRS MEMS packaging. Analytical analyses and experimental results have been carried out to derive algebraic expressions for the mechanical actuation mechanics of corrugated membrane for a low residual stress. It is shown that the residual stress of both types of corrugated and flat membranes can be modeled with the help of a mechanics theory. The residual stress in corrugated membranes is calculated using a geometrical model and is confirmed by finite element method(FEM) analysis and experimental results. The corrugated electrostatic actuated bridge is suspended over a concave structure of CPW, with sputtered nickel(Ni) as the structural material for the bridge and gold for CPW line, fabricated on high-resistivity silicon(HRS) substrate. The corrugated switch on concave structure requires lower actuation voltage than the flat switch on planar structure in various thickness bridges. The residual stress is very low by corrugating both ends of the bridge on concave structure. The residual stress of the bridge material and structure is critical to lower the actuation voltage. The Self-alignment HRS MEMS package of the RF-MEMS switch with a $15{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ lightly-doped Si chip carrier also shows no parasitic leakage resonances and is verified as an effective packaging solution for the low cost and high performance coplanar MMICs.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.285-291
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• 2013

In this paper, MOS-Capacitor and MOSFET devices with a Low Level Leakage Current of oxide thickness, channel width and length respectively were to investigate the reliability characterizations mechanism of ultra thin gate oxide films. These stress induced leakage current means leakage current caused by stress voltage. The low level leakage current in stress and transient current of thin silicon oxide films during and after low voltage has been studied from strss bias condition respectively. The stress channel currents through an oxide measured during application of constant gate voltage and the transient channel currents through the oxide measured after application of constant gate voltage. The study have been the determination of the physical processes taking place in the oxides during the low level leakage current in stress and transient current by stress bias and the use of the knowledge of the physical processes for driving operation reliability.