Researchers develop high-efficiency buck-boost DC-DC converter

A high-efficiency buck-boost DC-DC converter was developed by the group led by Prof. Cheng Lin from the School of Microelectronics on the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The converter made its debut on the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), held February 19–23, 2023, in San Francisco. The paper is titled, “A 98.6%-peak-efficiency 1.47a/mm² current-density buck-boost converter with always reduced conduction loss.”

Buck-boost converters are broadly utilized in cell digital gadgets powered by lithium batteries to transform the battery voltage to a set voltage of about 3.4 V to energy modules. The converter is anticipated to keep up high-efficiency over the total battery voltage vary to increase the battery life. In addition, the miniaturization of cell digital gadgets requires a excessive present density of converters.

In this work, Cheng’s group proposed a novel buck-boost converter topology containing solely 4 low-voltage energy tubes, one flying capacitor, and one inductor. This construction was the one design to this point to maintain 4 energy tubes and one flying capacitor with out excessive voltage resistance. Additionally, with the help of the flying capacitor, the inductor present and the conduction lack of this construction have been successfully decreased within the full battery voltage vary.

The check outcomes revealed that the chip achieved a peak effectivity of 98.6% and a most output present of two.5 A with a chip space of 1.7 mm².

Compared with these in different research, this design achieved the very best effectivity at full voltage conversion ratio and the very best present density on the lowest chip price, hanging an ideal steadiness between effectivity and current density.