Sneak circuit analysis method based on generalized connection matrix for power converters

Sneak circuit is a latent circuit path that causes undesired function to occur at some certain conditions. In this paper, by established directed graph of power converter, a generalized connection matrix was proposed to find out all of the switching paths. Then based on path criterions to eliminate the false paths, a new sneak circuit analysis method for power converters was given. The method was used to identify the sneak circuits of the 3-stage step-up resonant switched capacitor (RSC) converter. The analysis and experiment results showed that the proposed analysis method was validity.