Soft Transitions Power Factor Correction Circuit
The losses due to the reverse recovery of rectifiers impact significantly the performances of power converters especially at high frequency. The effect of reverse recovery time it is more severe in non isolated converters such as buck and boost topologies, due to the low impedance across the voltage source during the commutation of the diode. The current industry demand for rectifiers with high switching speed and low conduction losses has pushed the silicon based technology for power semiconductor to its performance limit. This is driving the quest for a new material such as, gallium arsine, diamond and silicon carbide, which are potential candidates for future power semiconductor devices. This paper is focused on circuit techniques, which minimize the negative effects of silicon rectifiers’ reverse recovery. There are presented two “soft” switching techniques applied to buck and boost topology, together with experimental results in a power factor correction application.
