Novel zero-current-switching (ZCS) PWM converters

A new family of zero-current-switching (ZCS) pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) converters which uses a new ZCS PWM switch cell is presented in this paper. The main switch and auxiliary switch operate at zero-current-switching turn on and turn off, and the all passive semiconductor devices in the ZCS-PWM converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn on and turn off. Besides operating at constant frequency and with reduced commutation losses, the proposed ZCS-PWM switch cell uses only one resonant inductor and these new converters have no additional current stress in comparison to the hard switching converter counterpart. The new family of ZCS-PWM converters is suitable for high-power application using insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT's). The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM boost converter, rated 1 kW and operating at 30 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of this new family of converters.