A Modified Area Product-Based Design for High-Frequency Planar Transformer Including Temperature Rise

Planar transformers (PTs) are becoming a popular solution for high-frequency (HF) and high-power density isolated dc-dc converters. However, their design is a complex task that usually needs several iterations. Area product (AP)-based design is one of the most used iterative methodologies for PT design. In this article, a modified AP (MAP)-based design is proposed for PT design [PT-modified area product (PT-MAP)]. It directly includes the temperature rise in the AP expression to accelerate the design process by reducing the number of iterations compared to the classical AP (CAP). PT-MAP-based design is applied to a 250 W 150 kHz PT case study and compared to the CAP, then validated by electrothermal numerical modeling and measurements on a prototype.