• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.356-363
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• 2018

The combination of a buck converter and a forward converter can be considered to accomplish a high step-down non-isolated converter. To decrease the insufficient step-down ratio of a regular buck converter and to distribute switch voltage stress, a forward-integrated buck (FIB) converter is proposed in this paper. The proposed interleaved DC-DC converter provides an additional step-down gain with the help of a forward converter. In addition to its simple structure, the transformer flux reset problem is solved and an additional magnetic core reset winding is not required. The operational principle and an analysis of the proposed FIB converter are presented and verified by experimental results obtained with a 240 W, 150 V/24 V prototype.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2017

In this paper, a non-dissipative snubber for reducing the switching losses in the step down converter is proposed. The conventional step down converter, e.g., buck converter, suffers from serious switching losses and consequentially heat generation because of its hard switching. Thus, it is unsuitable for high switching frequency operation. Reduction of the reactive components' size, such as an output inductor and capacitor, is difficult. The proposed snubber can slow down the increasing current slopes and switch voltage at turn-on and turn-off transients, thereby significantly reducing the switching loses. Additionally, the slowly increasing current during switch turn-on transition, can effectively solve the output rectifier diode reverse recovery problem. Therefore, the proposed non-dissipative snubber not only leads to the efficiency of converter operation at high switching frequency but also reduces the reactive components size in proportion to the switching frequency. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, theoretical analysis and experimental results from a 150 W, 1 MHz prototype are presented.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2014

This paper proposes a two-stage step-down buck and a tapped-inductor boost cascaded converter for high efficiency photovoltaic micro-inverter applications. The proposed inverter is a new structure to inject a rectified sinusoidal current into a low-frequency switching inverter for single-phase grid with unity power factor. To build a rectified-waveform of the output current. the converter employs both of a high efficiency step-up and a step-down converter in cascade. In step-down mode, tapped inductor(TI) boost converter stops and the buck converter operates alone. In boost mode, the TI converter operates with the halt of buck operation. The converter provides a rectified current to low frequency inverter, then the inverter converts the current into a unity power-factor sinusoidal waveform. By applying a TI, the converter can decrease the turn-on ratios of the main switch in TI boost converter even with an extreme step-up operation. The performance validation of the proposed design is confirmed by an experimental results of a 120W hardware prototype.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.203-216
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• 2014

In the conventional dc-dc converter, a pair of additional diode and the adjacent passive component capacitor/inductor can be added to the circuit with an X-shape connection, which generates a family of new topologies. The novel circuits, also called diode-assisted dc-dc converter, enhance the voltage boost/buck capability and have a great potential for high step-up/step-down power conversions. This paper mainly investigates and compares conventional dc-dc converter and diode-assisted dc-dc converter in wide range power conversion from the aspects of silicon devices, passive components requirements, electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and efficiency. Then, a comprehensive comparison example of a high step-up power conversion system was carried out. The two kinds of boost dc-dc converters operate under the same operation conditions. Mathematical analysis and experiment results verify that diode-assisted dc-dc converters are very promising for simultaneous high efficiency and high step-up/step-down power conversion in distributed power supply systems.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.263-266
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• 2003

The high power factor converters are classified step-up, step-up-down and step-down converter, The power conversion system must be increased switching frequency in order to achieve a small size, a light weight and a low noise. And the power system brings on a high efficiency and high power factor. When a switch of the step down converter is operated with a commercial frequency(60Hz), a reactor using the converter is gone with a great number of harmonics waveforms of low grade. As results of this, the converter is decreased input power factor and is increased system size. To improved these, this paper proposes a PSM(Pulse Size Modulation) control strategy operated with high power factor.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.70-76
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• 2013

For high power high step-down dc-dc conversion applications, conventional three-level dc-dc converters are subject to extreme duty cycles or increased volume and cost due to the use of transformers. In this paper, a transformerless three-level dc-dc buck converter with a high step-down conversion ratio is proposed. The converter comprises two asymmetrical half bridges, which are of the neutral point clamped structures. Therefore, the output pulse voltage of the converter can be obtained in terms of the voltage difference between the two half bridges. In order to realize harmonious switching of the converter, a modulation strategy with capacitor voltages self balance is presented. According to the deduced output dc voltage function, transformerless operation without extreme duty cycles can be implemented. Experimental results from a 1kW prototype verify the validity of the proposed converter. It is suitable for ship electric power distribution systems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.885-891
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• 2001

Ring/dot-type step-down piezoelectric transformer was manufactured by using Pb[(Mn$\sub$1/3/Sb$\sub$2/3)$\sub$0.05/Zr$\sub$0.475/Ti$\sub$0.475/]O$_3$ ceramics, which have excellent high-power piezoelectric properties. The characteristics of step-down piezoelectric transformer as a function of load resistance at output terminal was examined. Voltage gain was greatly dependent on drive frequency and load resistance, and showed maximum voltage gain at the resonance frequency. The output voltage was linearly increased as the input voltage increased. Voltage gain of the step-down piezoelectric transformer with respect to input voltage was very stable when the load resistance was in the range of 50-500 $\Omega$ .

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Marine Engineers Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.304-309
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• 2005

This paper presents an electronic ballast using a step down converter, a low frequency inverter for high intensity short-arc discharge lamp. The proposed ballast is composed of a full-wave rectifier, a step down converter operated as a current source with power regulation and a low frequency inverter with external ignition circuit. The ignition circuit generates high voltage pulse of $3{\sim}5[kV]$ peak, 130[Hz] periodically. Moreover, it is able to reignite at regular intervals by protective circuit. As experimental results on the test, acoustic resonance phenomenon is eliminated by operating the low frequency square wave voltage and current. Lamp voltage, current and consumption power are measured 123.8[V], 8.1[A] and 1,002[W], respectively. It was confirmed that the designed ballast operate the lamp with a constant power.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.519-527
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• 2012

A high step-down multiple-output LED driver is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the derivation of the driver with dual-output is presented and its operation principle and steady state performance are analyzed in detail. Secondly, a high step-down N-channel LED driver is proposed and its current auto-balance characteristic and step-down ratio are analyzed. Finally, an experimental prototype is built and the experimental results are given. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the proposed driver has the following virtues: First, if load balancing is achieved, the voltage gain is 1/N that of a Buck driver, where N is the number of channels. Second, each output automatically has an equal output current, without requiring more current close-loop control circuits than a Buck driver. Last, the voltage stresses of the switches and diodes are lower than those of a Buck driver, meaning that lower voltage switches and diodes can be used, and a higher efficiency can be expected.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.5C no.3
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• pp.102-110
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• 2005

Piezoelectric transformers(PT) are expected to be small, thin and highly efficient, and which are attractive as a transformer with high power density for step down voltage. For these reasons, we have attempted to develop a step-down PT for the miniaturized adaptor. We propose a PT, operating in thickness extensional vibration mode for step-down voltage. This PT consists of a multi-layered construction in the thickness direction. In order to develop the step-down PT of 10 W class and turn ratio of 0.1 with high efficiency and miniaturization, the piezoelectric ceramics and PT designs are estimated with a variety of characteristics. The basic composition of piezoelectric ceramics consists of ternary yPb(Zr$_{x}$Ti$_{1-x}$)O$_{3}$-(1-y)Pb(Mn$_{1/3}$Nb1$_{1/3}$Sb$_{1/3}$)O$_{3}$. In the piezoelectric characteristics evaluations, at y=0.95 and x=0.505, the electromechanical coupling factor(K$_{p}$) is 58$\%$, piezoelectric strain constant(d$_{33}$) is 270 pC/N, mechanical quality factor(Qr$_{m}$) is 1520, permittivity($\varepsilon$/ 0) is 1500, and Curie temperature is 350 $^{\circ}C$. At y = 0.90 and x = 0.500, kp is 56$\%$, d33 is 250 pC/N, Q$_{m}$ is 1820, $\varepsilon$$_{33}$$^{T}$/$\varepsilon$$_{0}$ is 1120, and Curie temperature is 290 $^{\circ}C$. It shows the excellent properties at morphotropic phase boundary regions. PZT-PMNS ceramic may be available for high power piezoelectric devices such as PTs. The design of step-down PTs for adaptor proposes a multi-layer structure to overcome some structural defects of conventional PTs. In order to design PTs and analyze their performances, the finite element analysis and equivalent circuit analysis method are applied. The maximum peak of gain G as a first mode for thickness extensional vibration occurs near 0.85 MHz at load resistance of 10 .The peak of second mode at 1.7 MHz is 0.12 and the efficiency is 92$\%$.