Patent ID: 8547717

Claim:
An N-level rectifier, comprising: an input; a plurality of switching devices, wherein the plurality of switching devices are connected to the input, wherein a number of the plurality of switching devices is equal to N−2, and wherein each of the plurality of switching devices comprises a switching element comprising a gate drive, the gate drive of each of the switching devices being connected a respective output of a gate driver; and a plurality of capacitors connected in series, wherein the plurality of capacitors are connected to the plurality of switching devices, wherein a number of the plurality of capacitors is equal to N−1, and wherein the plurality of capacitors are connected to an output of the N-level rectifier; wherein N comprises a number of voltage levels of the N-level rectifier and is equal to 4, and the gate driver comprises a sinusoidal reference duty cycle that is compared to three level-shifted triangles by a 3 respective differential amplifiers to generate a set of switching sequences, wherein the output of the three differential amplifiers are recombined using two exclusive or (XOR) gates, and wherein the output of each of the XOR gates is connected to a respective gate drive of the switching element of each of the switching devices.