A Brief Review of Snubber Circuits for Flyback Converter

This paper reviews the different snubber circuit topologies for flyback converters. At low power levels, flyback converters are required to operate at fast switching frequencies to achieve higher power densities, low flux linkage and reduced converter size. However, at high frequencies, switching losses in flyback converters increase along with voltage and current stresses on the main electronic switches. Moreover, additional stored energy in the transformer's leakage inductance can give rise to high EMI losses and reduce the overall efficiency of the converter. Different proposed snubber circuit schemes to mitigate these problems in a flyback converter are reviewed and discussed. Finally, the features of these snubber circuits are analyzed and compared based on their advantages, possible improvements and number of components used.