Design of a High Switching Frequency FPGA-Based SPWM Generator for DC/AC Inverters

The Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) principle is widely used in power electronic DC/AC converters (inverters) in energy conversion and motor control applications. The digital SPWM generation unit implementations have dominated over their counterparts based on analog circuits. In this paper, an FPGA-based SPWM generator is presented, which is capable to operate at switching frequencies up to 1 MHz (requiring FPGA operation at 100-160 MHz), thus it is capable to support the high switching frequency requirements of modern power electronic DC/AC converters. The successful operation of the proposed SPWM generator at high switching frequencies is demonstrated with post place-and-route simulation results for design verification and actual runs on hardware for design validation and proof-of-concept. The switching frequency of this system is an order of magnitude faster than previously proposed FPGA-implemented SPWM systems.