POWER
ELECTRONICS
PRIMER
by Martin F. Schlecht
circuit. Most likely you chose one designed
to process information. Computers,
telecommunication equipment, TVs, and
stereos - all components prevalent in our
lives - are based on such circuits. These
products process information that can be
manipulated in the media of other engineer-
ing disciplines. Those disciplines, however,
cannot match the speed, density, and low
cost of today’s electronic technology.
Some people now fmd electrical engineer-
ing so synonymous with information process-
ing that they sometimes forget the great value
of the “electrical world” for the distribution
and control of energy. But there are electronic
circuits whose purpose is to process power
rather than information. The digital or analog
circuits in each of the aforementioned elec-
tronic systems use electrical sources in a form
(5 V ~ ,Cfor example) that’s not readily avai-
able from the wall plug. A “power circuit,’’
which in these cases is called a “power sup-
ply,” is needed to convert the 6O-Hz, 1 lO-V,,
sinusoidal input voltage waveform to a con-
stant, regulated, and often electrically isolated
output voltage waveform.
8755-3996/92/$3.000 1992 IEEE
I
Power circuits also control motor speed
in appliances, electric vehicles, and indus-
trial processing equipment. Power circuits
interface photovoltaic arrays, which create
dc waveforms, with the ac power system,
allowing the generated energy to be insert-
ed into the utility grid. The ubiquitous
household light dimmer is also a power cir-
cuit. Power circuits have been made to han-
dle power levels ranging from less than a
watt to more than 10 megawatts.
If there is a universal definition of a
power circuit, it would be one that “pro-
cesses electrical energy in a way that would
be 100-percent efficient if the circuit’s
components were ideal.” A stereo amplifi-
er is not a power circuit under this defini-
tion; it may provide 500 W of power to its
load, but it does so through a linear amplifi-
er whose basic operation can never produce
100-percent efficiency. It is not the level of
power that matters, but the approach.
The Ideal Circuit
To understand how a power circuit func-
tions, consider the need to supply a load
with an ac voltage waveform when the
Circuits and Devices
source of power is a dc voltage Effects of Real Components
source. (For simplicity, we will con- Another example of a power cir-
sider the load to be a resistor, cuit’s possible form arises from the
although it could be, for example, need to provide an automobile’s
the induction motor of a ventilating microprocessor control unit with a
fan.) One way of performing the regulated 5 VdL from a battery
conversion is to provide a set of pos- whose voltage varies around 12 Vdi.
itive switches, P1 and P2, and a set An appropriate power circuit can
of negative switches, NI and N2, in provide this function much more
a bridge configuration (Fig. la). If efficiently than a linear regulator
we alternately close the set of posi- (Fig. 2a). The two ideal switches
tive switches and the set of negative are alternately turned on and off,
switches, each for half the period of with one or the other conducting at
the fundamental frequency we are all times. The voltage across switch
trying to create, an ac voltage wave- S2 is shown in Fig. 2b. (We have
form will appear across the load. assumed that the switches are oper-
The ac waveform created by the ated at a constant frequency and
switches is a squarewave, and we might nd-jtist the speed of rhe f a n fi-om / e m to that the percentage of the total period T that
have preferred a fundamental sinusoid. If maximum no matter M hat (he load. switch SI conducts is D, the duty ratio.)
this is the case, we can add a filter at the out-
put to attenuate the harmonic components of
the squarewave before the voltage wave-
form is presented to the load. In keeping
with our desire to be 100 percent efficient. P1
this filter will use inductors and capacitors,
not resistors and capacitors. The filter might
have a simple low-pass configuration (Fig.
NI
1b) or use a series resonant trap tuned to the
fundamental frequency (Fig. IC) to provide
greater selectivity between the fundamental
and the harmonic components.
If the switches in our power converter
have zero resistance when they are on, zero
leakage current when they are off, and
make the transition from one state to the
other with infinite speed, they will never
have any dissipation. With such ideal
switches, and with pure inductors and
capacitors, the conversion efficiency from
dc to ac is 100 percent.
Changing the form of the electrical
power is only part of what the power cir-
cuit of Fig. I does. Just as important is the
circuit’s ability to adjust the parameters of
the output waveform. For instance, we can
vary the output waveform’s frequency by
making the switches’ conduction periods
longer or shorter. Or, if we close switches
PI and NI between the periods when both
positive or both negative switches are con-
ducting, we will create an ac waveform
called a quasi-squarewave (Fig. Id). We
can adjust this waveform’s fundamental
. Converting power from dc to ac. (a) Four switches arranged in a ‘bridge” configuration
component by varying the duration of the create an ac squarewave from a dc voltage source. (b) A low-pass filter removes harmon-
waveform’s zero voltage sections. If the ics in the squarewave that would otherwise appear across the load. (c) A resonant filter
load is a ventilating-fan motor, this ability tuned to the fundamental frequency provides greater attenuation of the harmonic compo-
to control both the frequency and ampli- nents. (d) A “quasisquarewave, in which the fundamental component is controlled by
“

tude of the drive waveform permits us to varying the zero-volfage durafions.

January 1992 33
is negative, so we would use a diode in this
location (Fig. 2c). Because the inductor
maintains its current, the diode will turn on
whenever the transistor is turned off.
Neither the transistor nor the diode are
ideal switches. When they are on, they
have a voltage drop across them that pro-
duces a “conduction loss” when multiplied
by the on-state current. When they are off,
a leakage current flows that is negligible in
most cases, but it can be significant at high
temperatures or at applied voltages that
exceed the device’s rated voltage. In addi-
tion, a semiconductor device takes time to
switch between its on-state and off-state.
During this time, a large voltage and a
large current exist simultaneously (Fig. 3).
The energy dissipated during these transi-
tions, called the switching loss, contributes
to the average power dissipated in the
device, and this contribution increases as
the switching frequency is raised.
The energy storage components are not
ideal, either. The inductor dissipates power
because of the resistance in its conductors and
the hysteresis loss in its magnetic material.
The capacitor dissipates power because of the
hysteresis loss in its dielectric material. The
skin effect (in which current flows only near
the surface of a conductor) and proximity
effects (in which current flowing in one con-
ductor induces eddy currents in a nearby con-
ductor) produce higher conductor losses than
would be expected from simple dc calcula-
tions. There are a variety of magnetic and
dielectric materials that trade off hysteresis
loss at a given frequency for permeability or
permittivity. In general, for a given amount of
required peakenergy storage, the efficiency of
an inductor or capacitor can be increased only
by making the element physically bigger.
Besides loss, the other non-ideal charac-
teristic of inductors and capacitors is their
parasitic energy storage. Since the capaci-
tors used in power circuits are often physi-
cally quite large, they have a significant
series inductance. Similarly, inductors have
significant parallel capacitance. These par-
asitic components keep a power circuit’s
inductors and capacitors from performing
their filtering function over as broad a
range of frequencies as we would like.
Because a power circuit’s components
are not ideal, we must make design tradeoffs.
In our dc-dc converter, for instance, the
inductor and capacitor typically make up a
large fraction of the circuit’s size and weight.
If we raise the switching frequency, we can

Circuits and Devices

reduce the inductance and capacitance
proportionally. But any given semi-
conductor-device technology has a
certain maximum switching speed. If
we raise the switching frequency
without changing the switch technolo-
gy, we will incur higher average dissi-
pation in the switches and,
consequently, a lower converter eff-
ciency. Alternatively, we might
choose to leave the switching frequen-
cy alone, use smaller inductors and
capacitors, and tolerate more ac ripple
on the 5-V output waveform. In gen-
eral, our job as power-circuit design-
ers is to make tradeoffs in circuit size
(or weight), conversion efficiency,
and waveform quality (which involves
parameters such as ac-ripple content).
The design space for power electronics
actually has several more “dimensions.” There
is always a need to increase manufacturing
yield, increase reliability, and reduce cost.
Although designers of all electronic circuits
share these goals, the challenge in power elec-
tronics is unique because of the typically small
product runs, the custom nature of the products
and some of their components, and the large
amount of hand assembly required.
Supporting Technologies
While power circuits are usually quite sim-
ple in form, their design and fabrication
requires vast knowledge and sophisticated
(and continually improving) technologies.
Because the nonideal nature of components
prevents a power circuit from being “perfect,”
there is a need for ever-better semiconductor
power devices and energy-storage elements.
The semiconductor power devices available in
the 1960s, for example, included bipolar
diodes (with a pin structure), bipolar junction
transistors (having a lightly doped collector
region), and a thyristor (in the form of a silicon
controlled rectifier). In the 1970s, these
devices, with improved power-handling capa-
bility and switching speed, were joined by the
newly developed power Schottky diode,
power MOSFET, gate turn-off thyristor
(GTO), and static induction transistor (SIT).
These new device structures permitted operd-
tion at higher frequencies and higher power
levels with greater ease of control.
More recently, we have seen the devel-
opment of the insulated-gate bipolar tran-
sistor (IGBT) and the MOS-controlled
thyristor (MCT). These devices combine
MOS and bipolar processing technologies
January 1992
to produce a device that exhibits the
strengths of both device types, much as the
BICMOS technology has improved com-
bined analog and digital circuits. Also new
to the scene are power integrated circuits
(PICs), in which low-level analog, digital-
control, and drive circuits are integrated on
the same die with high-voltage, high-cur-
rent devices to reduce the cost and failure
rates associated with interconnections.
The control techniques required in power
circuits are very complex. These circuits are
highly nonlinear systems whose incremental
v5w I ‘ 5w
psw t Energy lost during switch
transitions
1 Typical waveforms for a power transistor (a) Voltage and current waveforms showin!
details of switch transitions. (b) Power dissipation within the switch showing switching loss
and conduction loss.
open-loop characteristics often
include several lightly damped poles
and a right-half plane zero.
Incremental-analysistools have been
developed, but the large-signal
behavior of the nonlinear system
remains a concern because over-
shoots caused by transients can
destroy the circuit or its load. Under
certain conditions, power circuits
can also display chaotic behavior
that is not well understood or easily
corrected.
Considerable engineering effort
and knowledge is required to take a
power circuit from a laboratory pro-
totype to a finished product. A
power electronic engineer must be an expert
in areas as diverse as thermal design, circuit
and system packaging, circuit protection,
and safety and electromagnetic interference
regulations.
High-Frequency, High-Density
Power Supplies
As one example of how power electronic
technology has advanced over the years,
consider the history of power supplies. In
the early 1950s, semiconductor power
diodes became a practical alternative to vac-
t
35
.- -
tributed power-supply systems, in which
power is bused at a high unregulated volt-
age (48 V, for example) and converted to
the final voltage at the point of load. Third,
with a converter this small, customers are
likely to accept the power supply as a stan-
dard “component” to be designed into their
units rather than as a subsystem to be cus-
tomized for their application. This should
lead to higher product runs, lower produc-
tion cost, and higher reliability.

Education in Power Electronics

Most of today’s power electronic engineers
“fell into their job,” often coming to the
discipline with an analog-circuit back-
ground rather than specific university train-
ing. In the late 1970s, only a few U.S.
universities such as Cal Tech, Duke, MIT,
University of Missouri, and Virginia Tech,
had substantial graduate-level research pro-
grams. Today, there are over 30 U.S. uni-
versities (and 45 professors) with power
electronic programs, and the number is
growing. Many of these universities also
provide undergraduate courses in power
electronics at the senior level, and power
circuits are increasingly being used as
examples in basic core courses such as net-
work analysis and control. Perhaps, in time,
more electrical engineers will find their
way to the intriguing, challenging, and
rewarding field of power electronics.
CD

M a r t i n F. Schlechf [MI is Associate

Professor of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA,
and is associated with the Institute’s
Laboratory for Electromagnetic and
Electronic Systems, and the Microsystems
Technology Laboratories.

Recommended Reading
1. Kassakian, J . G., M. F. Schlecht, and G. C.
Verghese, Principles of Power Electronics
(Addison-Wesley, 199I).
2. Mohan, N., T. M. Undeland, and W. P.
Robbins, Power Electronics: Converters,
Applications, and Design (Wiley. 1989).
3 . Baliga, B. J., Modem Power Devices (Wiley,
1987).
4. Heumann, K . , Basic Principles of Power
Electronics (Springer-Verlag, 1986).
5 . Bedford, B. D. and R. G. Hoft, Principles of
Inverter Circuits] (Wiley, 1964).

Circuits and Devices