Comparison of FPGA- and microcontroller-based control of a high-dynamic power electronic converter

In power electronic applications, the most imported design points are efficiency and size. One approach is to increase the switching frequency of the semiconductors to reduce the size of passive components. But smaller passive components increase the dynamics of the system and the control system also has to handle these higher dynamics. This paper presents the control of a phase shifted resonance full-bridge high-dynamic DC-DC converter and shows that an FPGA-based control is a feasible option, not only to control this converter but also for future wide-bandgap applications, where the switching frequency can be dramatically increased. The control results are compared between an FPGA and an industrial microcontroller with the same control structure.