A Stacked Dual-Active-Half-Bridge DC/DC Differential Power Converter

This brief discusses a DC/DC converter implemented as a Dual-Active-Half-Bridge (DAHB) that has been folded across its galvanic isolation and stacked upon itself. Analysis is provided within the framework of the Manhattan Topology, a multilevel converter topology defined by a set of series stacked capacitors where there exists a scheme to transfer power between capacitors. The differential aspect of this converter comes from the fact that the power exchanged between these capacitors to maintain voltage balance in steady state is less than the total power flow of the converter. The DAHB of the proposed converter is its capacitive power transfer mechanism. A closed-loop control scheme is provided. Lastly, transient and steady-state results of an experimental 1MHz GaN implementation of the proposed topology are shown.