Interleaved Single-Stage LLC Converter Design Utilizing Half- and Full-Bridge Configurations for Wide Voltage Transfer Ratio Applications

Automotive on-board dc–dc converters are required to operate over a wide input and output voltage range depending on the state of charge of the input and the output battery. Conventionally, the unidirectional power transfer between these batteries is enabled by a two-stage converter concept. A first-stage nonisolated dc–dc converter regulates the input voltage of the galvanically isolated second-stage dc–dc converter such that the second-stage converter operates in its optimum operating point. This article presents a single-stage interleaved LLC resonant converter of 3.6 kW for this purpose. While LLC converters are usually not suitable to cover such a wide voltage range (the input voltage between 240 and 420 V and the output voltage between 8 and 16 V), this LLC converter is operated in a full-bridge mode for large gains and in a half-bridge mode for low gains. For intermediate gains and loads, the LLC employs the phase-shift mode. To operate the interleaved LLCs at equal switching frequencies enabling output current ripple cancellation to reduce the output capacitor, again, the phase-shift mode is utilized to balance the power transfer during the full-bridge mode while the asymmetrical duty-cycle mode is proposed for power balancing during the half-bridge mode. This article analyzes the converter design for these modes of operation and provides a comprehensive design procedure allowing the designer to simultaneously analyze all stress values for various resonant tank designs. A 3.6-kW prototype employing Si superjunction MOSFETs achieves a power density of 2.1 kW/L. The maximum efficiency reaches 96.5%, while for most operating points, it is kept well above 90%. The experimental measurement results validate the analysis and show that phase-shift operation and asymmetrical duty-cycle modulation can be utilized for power balancing for full-bridge and half-bridge configurations, respectively, such that a much smaller output capacitor can be employed.