Patent Application: US-201113228268-A

Abstract:
provided are circuits and methods for driving the synchronous rectifier of a power converter . a non - linear voltage sense compensator is applied across the drain and source of the sr , and a sense signal is provided to the sr driver sense input , such that false triggering of the sr is effectively eliminated . in addition , the voltage sense compensator ensures that the sr is turned on as soon as its current starts to flow and is turned off when its current falls to zero . the embodiments described herein may be incorporated into new vr designs , or they may be used to improve the sr driving characteristics of commercially available voltage sensing sr drivers .

Description:
a challenge in the design of resonant converters is the need to precisely synchronize the driving signal of the sr with the current through the rectifier . to generate an accurate driving signal for the secondary side sr , accurate current or voltage sensing is required . however , a problem in designing such converters is that the resonance of the circuit prevents highly accurate voltage sensing . the non - linear compensation circuits and methods described herein overcome this problem . fig1 is an equivalent circuit of a typical mosfet showing its body diode and intrinsic drain to source capacitance c oss . although embodiments are described herein primarily with respect to mosfets as srs , it will be appreciated that other switching devices may be used , such as , for example , mesfets and jfets . fig2 ( a ) is a block diagram of a conventional sr driver circuit , wherein the driving circuit is connected directly across the drain and source of the sr mosfet . fig2 ( b ) is a circuit diagram of a conventional half - bridge llc resonant converter with srs . mosfets q h , q l , q s1 , and q s2 are shown with their body diodes and intrinsic output ( drain - source ) capacitances . c oss1 / and c oss2 are the output capacitances of the srs q s1 and q s2 . l lkp is the primary side leakage inductance of the transformer . l lks1 and l lks2 are the secondary leakage inductances . fig2 ( c ) and 2 ( d ) show key waveforms of the llc converter when operated in full load and light load conditions , respectively . the primary side driving signals cannot be applied to the srs because of nonlinear characteristics . to drive the srs , the v ds of the srs may be used to approximate acceptable drive signals . as shown in fig2 ( c ) and 2 ( d ), there is a small interval when both of the sr mosfets turn off ( t 4 ˜ t 6 in fig2 ( c ) and t 4 ˜ t 7 in fig2 ( d )). when the srs turn off , l lkp , l lks1 and l lks2 resonate with the output capacitance ( c oss ) of the srs . the voltage v ds2 has high frequency spikes when q s1 / turns off . if the voltage spikes reach the srs turn on threshold , the srs will be false - triggered . this results in an energy reversal from the output capacitor to the input source , and may result in breakdown of the power circuit . as used herein , the term “ false triggering ” refers to turning on or turning off a switch ( e . g ., a mosfet ) at an inappropriate or non - ideal time . such unwanted switching of the sr may waste energy and may be potentially destructive to the converter . one solution to prevent false - triggering at turn - on of the srs is to add an rc filter to absorb the voltage spikes of v ds . the filter may be used as a substitute for v ds , and sensed by the driving ic to generate the gate signal . such a circuit is shown in fig3 ( a ). the equivalent circuit when the sr mosfet diode is on is shown in fig3 ( b ) and key waveforms are shown in fig3 ( c ). due to the high frequency of the voltage spikes , the time constant of the rc filter should be very small , but should be selected a little larger than the period of the parasitic ringing . for example , a time constant of about 100 ns may eliminate false - triggering of the mosfet . however , the driving signal of the sr may have an unacceptably long lag time at turn on of the sr mosfet and a long lead time at turn off of the sr mosfet , which will cause considerable conduction loss of the sr body diode . the reason for the delay at turn on of the sr mosfet is that the capacitor in the rc filter sustains a high positive voltage before the body diode conducts , and then discharges slowly to the turn - on threshold ( less than 0v ) through resistor r filter . when the body diode of the sr starts to conduct , the detected v filter1 is larger than the output voltage v out at t 1 . during t 1 ˜ t 2 , the body diode of q s1 is forward biased and clamps the v ds1 to the forward voltage of the body diode − v fb . corresponding to the time constant of the rc filter , v filter starts to decrease to the turn on threshold slowly . as to the lead time at turn off , the impedance of c oss is much larger than the r ds — on and can be neglected ; therefore , only the trace inductance of the sr package should be taken into account . the current through the sr can be treated as part of a sinusoid waveform , and the frequency of the sinusoid waveform is equal to the series resonant frequency of the resonant tank . because of the trace inductance , the voltage v ds leads the current i sr . if v ds is detected directly to generate the driving signal of sr , the duty cycle loss is inevitable . fig4 shows the equivalent circuit of the sr mosfet when it is on . l trace is the trace inductance inside the sr mosfet package and r ds — on is the on resistance of the sr mosfet . the measured voltage at the mosfet terminal is the sum of voltage across l trace and across r ds — on , v sd = v rds — on − v ltrace = i sr * r ds — on the sr current i sr is approximately a sinusoidal waveform . when the sr current decreases towards zero , the trace inductance will induce a negative voltage to prevent the sr current from falling . the actual polarity is shown in fig4 . in order to reduce the size of the power supply , the switching frequency of the converter should be increased . when frequency increases , the negative voltage also increases and therefore , the actual current at which v sd equals zero will increase . thus , if v sd is used to determine the turn off time of the sr mosfet , the body diode of the sr mosfet will be conducting and extra loss will be introduced . the higher the switching frequency is , the higher the body diode current will be and therefore , the higher the body diode conduction loss will become . if the switching frequency is reduced , then the body diode current will be reduced . as described herein , the turn - on delay problem may be solved by adding a non - linear compensation circuit . the purpose of the non - linear compensation circuit is to provide a more accurate switch timing signal to the sr driver circuit . the sr driver circuit operates on the principle that measuring v ds from the sr mosfet directly provides adequate switch timing however , this is not the case . measurements of v ds made externally to the packaged mosfet device deviate from the ideal case due to stray elements in the mosfet package , as well as in other elements , that degrade the accuracy of the externally sensed v ds . examples of such elements include l trace , r ds — on , and the drain to source capacitance . use of such externally sensed v ds causes the sr driver circuit to generate a sr switch timing signal that switches the mosfet at non - optimal timing ( also referred to herein as false triggering ). the non - linear compensation circuit is referred to herein as “ non - linear ” because it includes a component that has a non - linear current - voltage characteristic . such a component has a semiconductor junction ( e . g ., a diode or a transistor ). the non - linear compensation circuit is asymmetrical in that it provides for different compensation mechanisms for the “ on switch event ” and for the “ off switch event ”. during mosfet turn on , the non - linear compensation circuit compensates the effect of resonant ringing between the leakage inductance of the transformer winding and the output capacitance of the mosfet at the drain , which causes an oscillatory signal which can falsely trigger the on switch event . during mosfet turn off , the non - linear compensation circuit compensates for the delay caused by the trace inductance l trace inside the mosfet package and the on resistor r ds — on of the mosfet . as shown in the block diagram of fig5 ( a ), such a non - linear compensation circuit may be connected between the sr device and the sr driving circuit . for example , fig5 ( b ) shows a circuit diagram of an embodiment wherein the non - linear compensation circuit is applied to the srs of a half - bridge llc resonant converter , where components common to the circuit of fig2 ( b ) have the same label . generally , the non - linear compensation circuit may be applied to other power circuits wherein a synchronous rectifier is turned on and / or turned off using a voltage sensing technique , wherein voltage across the rectifier is sensed . for example , the non - linear compensation circuit may be applied to other power converters , such as , but not limited to , a series resonant converter and a flyback converter , as shown in the embodiments of fig5 ( d ) and 5 ( e ), respectively . in addition , the non - linear compensation circuit may be applied to power converters used in applications including , for example , motor controllers , fluorescent lamp ballasts , etc . the embodiments shown in fig5 ( b ), 5 ( d ), and 5 ( e ) are suitable for low side sr drivers . it will be appreciated that these embodiments can easily be implemented for high side sr drivers by appropriate connection of transformer secondary side and sr mosfet . see , for example , fig5 ( c ) which shows the embodiment of fig5 ( b ) configured as a high side driver . the circuit operation will be described in detail with reference to the embodiment of fig5 ( b ). in fig5 ( b ), v f1 / and v f2 are sensed by the sr driving circuit as substitutes for v d1 and v d2 . the non - linear compensation circuit , as shown in the embodiment of fig6 ( a ), includes an anti - parallel diode d filter to discharge the rc filter capacitor quickly . in other embodiments the diode may be replaced with a device that effectively operates like a diode . for example , the diode may be replaced with switch such as a fet or a bipolar transistor , provided that a suitable timing signal is used to control the switch so as to discharge the capacitor at the appropriate time . the equivalent circuit of this embodiment is shown in fig6 ( b ), which also shows the body diode , drain to source capacitance c oss , r ds — on , and l trace , of the sr mosfet . the forward voltage of d filter ( v fd ) is selected to be a little larger than that of the body diode of the sr ( v fb ). in some embodiments two or more diodes may be connected in series if this condition cannot be met by a single diode . the value of r filter and c filter should selected so that the noise caused by the leakage inductance of the transformer and the output capacitor of the sr mosfet can be removed . a commonly used method is to select the r filter and c filter value so that the following relation is satisfied : to compensate the lead time at the switch off of the sr , methods known in the art may be employed . for example , a dcr current sensing method may be applied . parameters of the non - linear compensation circuit should be selected to match the trace inductance l trace r ds — on of the sr . for example , as shown in fig7 ( a ) and 7 ( b ), the parameters of the filter may be chosen to emulate the lead angle θ lead so that the voltage across the c filter substantially corresponds to v rds — on . the parameters of the filter may be defined as equivalent circuit diagrams of the non - linear compensation circuit embodiment of fig5 ( a ) in various operation modes are shown in fig8 ( a ) to 8 ( c ). key waveforms under full and light load conditions are illustrated in fig9 ( a ) and 9 ( b ), respectively . in these figures it is assumed that q h is off and q l is on before t 0 . operation of the circuit may be described as follows , with reference to fig9 ( a ) and ( b ): 1 . before t 0 , all of the srs are turned off . there is only the magnetizing current discharging the resonant capacitor . at t 0 , the primary mosfet q l turns off . the voltage across the sr decreases quickly , and reaches the forward voltage drop v fb of the sr body diode at t 1 . at the same time , c filter is discharged through d filter until the voltage across c filter equals v fd − v fb , wherein v fd is the forward voltage drop of d filter . 2 . at t 1 , due to c oss of the sr , the voltage v ds has high frequency ringing ( as explained above ). the peak voltage of the ringing is limited by the forward voltage drop v fb of the sr body diode . meanwhile , r filter and c filter together operate like a rc filter and filter out the high frequency ringing . 3 . before t 2 , the body diode of q s1 / is forward biased and clamps v ds to − v fb . at t 2 , the voltage across c filter v filter reaches the turn on threshold of the driving ic and the driving signal is generated . during t 2 ˜ t 4 , r filter and c filter together operate like a traditional dcr current sensing circuit to emulate the current through the sr . at t 4 , the voltage v filter reaches the turn off threshold of the driving chip . the sr is turned off . there are two conditions for the non - linear compensation circuit to emulate the current through the sr . one is that the parameters of r filter and c filter are selected to match the trace inductance l trace and r ds — on of the sr , as shown in equation ( 2 ). the other is that the initial voltage v filter is zero volts . due to the design parameters of r filter and c filter as well as the small value between v fd − v fb and the turn on threshold , both of these conditions may be met . in addition , the false - triggering immunity of the non - linear compensation circuit is retained . consequently , reliability of the sr circuit is improved and conduction loss is significantly reduced . it will be appreciated that a non - linear compensation circuit as described herein may be implemented separately from the sr driving circuit , or partially or fully combined with the sr driving circuit . for example , fig1 ( a ) to 10 ( d ) show simplified diagrams of various embodiments in which the non - linear compensation circuit is implemented separately from the sr driving circuit ( fig1 ( a )), partially combined with the sr driving circuit ( fig1 ( b ) and 10 ( c )), and fully combined with the sr driving circuit ( fig1 ( d )). the sr driving circuit , either alone or partially or fully implemented with the non - linear compensation circuit , may be fabricated using discrete components or using any suitable integrated circuit ( ic ) technology . embodiments are further described by way of the following non - limiting example . an embodiment of a half bridge llc resonant converter with srs and non - linear compensation circuit , based on the circuit shown in fig5 ( b ), was built and tested , and a simulation was also conducted using simulation software ( saber version 4 . 0 , synopsys , inc ., mountain view , calif .). in the simulation and the experimental embodiment , the converter was 400v / 12v , 600w , and the parameters were as listed in table 1 . fig1 shows the simulation results for v ds , the current of the resonant tank , and the current through the non - linear compensation circuit . it is observed that the extra loss of the non - linear compensation circuit is very small . a short delay at the switch on and a lead time at the switch off are provided to prevent an energy reversal from the output capacitor to the source . because of the small turn on and turn off currents of the sr , the conduction loss of the body diode may be neglected . fig1 and 13 show waveforms of the experimental embodiment at full load and light load conditions , respectively . these results show that the embodiment operates properly at any load condition . fig1 compares the measured efficiency of the experimental embodiment with and without the non - linear compensation circuit under different load conditions . it can be seen that as the load current increases , the efficiency improvement resulting from the non - linear compensation circuit becomes more significant . all cited publications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety . those skilled in the art will recognize or be able to ascertain equivalents to the embodiments described herein . such equivalents are considered to be encompassed by the invention and are covered by the appended claims . a . lokhandwala , m . salato , and m . soldano , “ dual smartrectifier and directfet chipset overcomes package source inductance effects and provides accurate sensing for synchronous rectification in dc - dc resonant converters ,” in proc . ieee appl . power electron . conf ., 2007 , pp . 1559 - 1562 . b . wang , x . xin , s . wu , et al ., “ analysis and implementation of llc burst mode for light load efficiency improvement ,” in proc . ieee appl . power electron . conf ., 2009 , pp . 58 - 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