A new soft-switching cell usable in bridge converters

This paper proposes a new soft switching topology, which improves the features of bridge converters. This new topology has a simple and reliable operation and can be used in all bridge topologies. The soft switching process permits the zero voltage switching of all transistors of the circuit and an output voltage with a controllable value of dv/dt. Through a simple analytical study it was found that output voltage fall-time and rise-time have important effects in the spectra, mainly at high frequencies. This paper evaluates the theoretical and experimental results already obtained by the authors. A comprehensive evaluation of the application domains, where this soft switching method has important advantages of efficiency and cost, is also introduced. A lab prototype is presented in order to verify the circuit concept.