Back To Basics: Stabilizing Your Power Factor Correction Stage
by Christophe Basso, Future Electronics, Toulouse, France, How2Power Today, Feb 15 2022
Focus:
A PFC stage becomes mandatory in Europe if the average input power of your converter
exceeds 75 W. Despite a very low crossover frequency, a PFC boost converter remains a
closed-loop system delivering a high-voltage output. Therefore, properly stabilizing the
converter is key to achieving reliable and long-term operation. This article sheds light
on how to do that with the aid of modern simulation tools. This discussion begins with a
review of the popular design choices for architecture, topology, control mode and other
operating techniques used in the PFC stage. It then explains the concepts used to simply
model the control-to-output transfer function of this stage, which leads us to a suitable
compensation scheme. Simulation of the PFC stage using SIMPLIS enables us to quickly check
the performance of the compensated circuit.
What you’ll learn:
- How to create a first-order model of a PFC stage and used that to derive its control-to- output transfer function
- How to compensate a PFC stage and verify compensator performance using SIMPLIS
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