A New PWM-Controlled Quasi-Resonant Converter for a High Efficiency PDP Sustaining Power Module

A new pulsewidth modulation (PWM)-controlled quasi-resonant converter for a high-efficiency plasma display panel (PDP) sustaining power module is proposed in this paper. The load regulation of the proposed converter can be achieved by controlling the ripple of the resonant voltage across the primary resonant capacitor with a bidirectional auxiliary circuit, while the main switches are operating at a fixed duty ratio and fixed switching frequency. Hence, the waveforms of the currents can be expected to be optimized from the view-point of conduction loss. Furthermore, the proposed converter has good zero-voltage switching (ZVS) capability, simple control circuits, no high-voltage ringing problem of rectifier diodes, no dc offset of the magnetizing current and low-voltage stresses of power switches. Thus, the proposed converter shows higher efficiency than that of a half-bridge LLC resonant converter under light load condition. Although it shows the lower efficiency at heavy load, because of the increased power loss in auxiliary circuit, it still shows the high efficiency around 94%. In this paper, operational principles, features of the proposed converter, and analysis and design considerations are presented. Experimental results demonstrate that the output voltage can be controlled well by the auxiliary circuit using the PWM method.