Designing An Ultra-Thin Stepdown Converter: Multiphase Vs. Multilevel

Focus:

This article examines the feasibility of adopting various nonisolated stepdown topologies for an ultra-thin (3.5-mm) 48-V to 20-V, 250-W power solution for a gaming notebook application. After some comparison of several topology options, including the ZVS buck, hybrid synchronous buck, and switched-capacitor converter, two other topologies—the two-phase buck and the three- level buck— were selected for comparison. Converters based on these topologies were then designed, built and tested. GaN FETs were used in these designs to further reduce the converter size and improve efficiency beyond what could be achieved using silicon MOSFETs. This article describes each design and evaluates the experimental results obtained in each case to determine which approach offers the optimal solution for the application.

What you’ll learn:

• How to design an ultra-thin 48-V to 20-V dc-dc converter using a multi-level topology
• How to understand the advantages of a multi-level power supply topology in low voltage dc-dc applications
• How to compare multi-level and multi-phase stepdown topologies at 48-V input

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Author & Publication:

Jianjing Wang, Efficient Power Conversion, El Segundo, Calif., How2Power Today, May 15 2020

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