Use of snappy recovery diodes is a new way to increase efficiency and reliability of hard switching power converters

A new low-cost snubber circuit for diode recovery in hard switching converters is proposed. A diode with snappy recovery behaviour in coupling with the proposed current snubber has close to ideal diode recovery process, so such a diode seems to be more promising than a soft recovery diode for high-power applications to which efficiency and reliability are the main care. This approach can be especially efficient in replacement of high voltage (URRM ≥ 1,7 kV) soft recovery diode, which has a large reverse recovery time (τ ≥ 0,5µs) and high switching losses to snappy recovery diode. At the same time, the reliability of the diode in the case of overheating is improved since increasing the stored charge due to increasing temperature does not result in a proportional increasing of switching losses in the diode.