Ladder-Based Bridge Circuits

Background

Bridge circuits are employed in 80% of power conversion circuits, including DC-DC, DC-AC, and AC-DC converters. They consist of complementary switches connected across a DC bus voltage that are used to generate a periodic rectangular signal from a DC signal, and vice versa. A current issue with bridge circuits is that increasing the breakdown voltage of a bridge circuit, whether by connecting N devices in series or via multilevel converter topologies, degrades its switching performance compared to that of the comprising field-effect transistors. Also, low-voltage devices offer lower switching losses compared to high-voltage devices for the same conduction loss, i.e., better switching figure of merit.

Description

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have formulated a groundbreaking approach to bridge circuits used in power conversion, allowing electronics and semiconductor manufacturers to reach higher voltages with previously developed devices. By utilizing low-voltage semiconductor devices in high-voltage applications, these new bridge circuits maintain excellent switching performance while achieving higher voltages compared to single devices, overcoming the traditional trade-offs faced in power conversion circuits. Additionally, the circuits can effectively establish isolated and non-isolated switching and resonant converters with 10% higher efficiency compared to existing solutions.

Advantages

• Enables efficient power conversion within a small form factor
• Allows the voltage to be divided equally between the stacked bridges
• Creates higher voltages using existing devices without degrading their performance
• Allows low-voltage devices to be used in high-voltage applications without compromising their switching performance

Applications

• Semiconductors
• Power electronics
• Power converters
• Integrated circuits
• Data centers
• Energy storage and battery management systems
• Electric vehicles
• Charging stations
• Shipboard microgrids
• Renewable energy sources and their interface to the grid
• Terrestrial microgrids

Patent Status

Patent Pending