Power Electronics Building Block with Distributed TCM Modulator

High switching frequencies in combination with zero voltage switching allow to increase the power density while reducing the costs of power electronic converters. However, the design of such systems is complex due to the complex hardware design and the small-time constants in the modulators and control system resulting from the high switching frequencies. To still benefit from the advantages of high switching frequencies and zero voltage switching, in a wide range of applications, it is desirable to have a general-purpose power electronics building block which provides these hardware related functions in an encapsulated module via an easy-to-use interface. Such a power electronics building block that can operate at high switching frequencies and realizes zero voltage switching over the entire operating range is presented. This is achieved by a novel distributed realization of a triangular current mode modulator and the introduction of switch modules. Besides the basic ideas of the switch modules and the distributed triangular current mode modulator, as well as two possible realization variants, the application of the power electronics building block is demonstrated on the example of a non-isolated DC/DC converter with superimposed closed loop voltage control.