Design Challenges For Distributed Power Systems

Remarkable progresses have been made over the past decade in power conversion technologies, including advanced power semiconductor devices, power management ICs, innovative circuit topologies, and packaging and integrated system solutions. These technological advancements have been manifested in a wide range of products and applications with ever increasing performances, efficiency, and power density. This paper highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of power conversion technologies in the distributed power system (DPS) for computer, telecommunication and network products. Topics discussed in this paper include improved EMI filter design techniques to mitigate the detrimental effects of filter-converter parasitics; impacts of the operating frequency of PFC to the size and weight of EMI filter; power conversion architecture and potential simplification; high-frequency high-density AC/DC and DC/DC topologies and designs; bus converters; as well as non-isolated point- of-load converters