Lossless, passive soft switching methods for inverters and amplifiers

This paper proposes new lossless passive soft switching methods for inverters developed from a synthesis procedure applicable to all PWM converters. The lossless passive soft-switching converter properties and synthesis procedure are described and extended here for inverters. Promising half-bridge and full-bridge soft-switching inverter examples are shown from the synthesis results. The voltage stress across the main switches and snubber diodes can be easily maintained below 125% of V/sub bus/. No transformers are used for energy recovery, eliminating their associated diode stress and leakage inductance problems. The soft turn-on full bridge contains only six components. The soft turn-on/turn-off half-bridge contains 12 components. The theoretical and experimental waveforms and analysis are given.