Investigation of Impact of Number of Phases in Interleaved dc-dc Boost Converter

This paper investigates the impact of the number of phases in an interleaved dc-dc boost converter. Indeed, in high power applications where more than hundreds of amperes are requested, the use of interleaving topologies can yield to significant advantages as they permit to divide the current into several phases. This ultimately reduces the current rating of each power inductor and switch, and provides benefits in terms of current and voltage ripple, if a proper control scheme is used. In this paper, an investigation of the impact of the number of phases in interleaved dc-dc boost converter topology is proposed. Several criteria are considered such as the cost and volume of switches, efficiency, input current ripple, and power inductor volume to identify the optimal topology for a given application. Several comparison results have been established to determine the optimal number of phases requested for the given converter specifications.