Novel Switched-Capacitor Converter Supports 48-V Power Architecture In Data Centers
by Rehan Tahir, Infineon Technologies Americas, Milpitas, Calif., How2Power Today, Sep 16 2019
Focus:
The move to a 48-V power bus in data centers has triggered innovation in the design of
board-level power supplies such as the zero-voltage-switching switched-capacitor
converter, or ZSC, developed by Infineon. The ZSC topology is based on the Dickson
charge pump; the voltage step down is achieved via capacitive energy transfer. It is a
soft-switching approach and only employs a single, small external inductor to support
zero-voltage turn-on. This article describes the principles of operation of the ZSC and
offers tips for successfully implementing it. Experimental results are presented,
showing the efficiency one ZSC eval board configured for 4:1 stepdown at up to 1-kW
output, and another configured for 4:1 stepup. Application of the ZSC with different
stepdown ratios, in combination with a multiphase buck converter, and in other
combinations with POL converters are discussed.
What you’ll learn:
- How to understand the operation of Infineon’s zero-voltage-switching switched-capacitor converter (ZSC)
- How to successfully implement the ZSC converter in board-level designs
- How to stepdown a 48-V power bus using a ZSC converter and VRMs or point-of-load converters
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