Power Electronics

Shahid Iqbal
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
Email: shahidsidu@hotmail.com
 What is Power Electronics ?
• Power electronics is the application of electronic circuits
to the control and conversion of electrical energy.
• Example: An Electrical Vehicle Drive Must converter DC-
input to an ac output that has variable rms value and
variable frequency

 Power electronics is power processing circuits and control

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 What is Power Electronics ? Cont.

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Multi-disciplinary Nature of Power Electronics
 Why Power Electronics ?

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 Why Power Electronics ?
• Is it possible to step- 10 A 1.25 A
up dc voltage ?
6 V dc 48 V dc

• Yes, it is possible
L i ou t
using a simple
power electronics + +

circuit known as V in = 6V
_ C
R 48 V
_
boost converter.
R = 38 .4

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 Principle of Power Electronic Circuits

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 Types of Power Conversion Circuits

• AC-DC Converter (Rectifier)

• AC-AC Converter (Power Controller, Cycloconverter,

Matrix converter)

• DC-AC Converter (Inverter)

• DC-DC Converter (DC Chopper -Buck/Boost/Buck-

Boost Converter)

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 Applications of Power Electronics
• Heating and lighting control • Uninterruptible power supplies
(UPS)
• Induction heating
• Electric power transmission
• Fluorescent lamp ballasts • Automotive electronics
- Active
- Electronic ignitions
- Passive
• Motor drives - Alternators
• Battery chargers • Energy storage
• Electric vehicles - Flywheels
- Motors - Capacitors
- Regenerative braking - SMES
• Switching power supplies • Power conditioning for alternative
• Power conditioning power sources
• Spacecraft power systems - Solar cells
- Battery Powered
- Fuel Cells
- Flywheel Powered
- Wind Turbines

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Solar Power
• Deliver maximum energy from a solar panel.
• Track this “maximum power point” as it changes with
illumination and temperature.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Typical stand-alone PV Power System

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 Applications of Power Electronics
PV-Diesel Hybrid Power System

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 Applications of Power Electronics
• Jetliners are moving to all-electric
– Electric motors in place of hydraulics

• Car electrical systems are retooling.

– Electric air conditioning, power steering,
suspension, control, pumps are better.
– Car electric power approaches
that of a house.
– The 12 V system is inadequate.
 Applications of Power Electronics
A Laptop Power Supply

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Digital Power
• A sample design challenge:
– Digital designs are moving to lower voltages to “reduce power” and
squeeze dimensions.
– Near-term example: 1 V power (at 70 W) for microprocessor
– Longer-term: 0.5 V power, still at 70 W
• How do you deliver 140 A to a chip without burning
something up?
• If a conversion circuit includes a diode (they always do) with a
0.7 V drop, then providing 0.5 V power yields at best ~40%
efficiency.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Digital Power

• It gets worse.
• Whenever an electrical connection is made to
something, there is wire involved – and wires have
inductance.
• A typical value of inductance is about 5 nH/cm.
• Does that matter?

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Digital Power

• A 3000 MHz microprocessor can swing from almost zero

current to almost full current (up to 40 A) in just a few clock
cycles.
• Estimate: a 40 A swing in 3 cycles yields 40 A in 1 ns, or di/dt
= 4  1010 A/s.
• Connect through 2 cm of wire  10 nH inductance.
• Fast current change induces a voltage across the wire.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Digital Power

• Voltage drop: L di/dt = (10 nH) x ( 4 x 1010 A/s).

• This gives 400 V, and the processor is destroyed.
• In the end, power processing and distribution must
be designed into the chip itself.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Electrical and Hybrid Car
• Power electronics is an essential enabler for electric and
hybrid cars.
• The electric motor, batteries, extra equipment, and major
operating components such as brakes all use power
electronics.
• The designs are recent and immature.
• The target power level for
a car is at least 100 kW
for the drive. This is
equivalent to roughly 200 HP.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Hybrid Vehicle
• Toyota architecture 

• Honda architecture:

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Electrical Vehicle Power and Drive System

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Miniature Power
• A sample design challenge:
– Efficient miniature power for communications and for network nodes.
• Supply just a few milliwatts, with very high efficiency.
• Example: power on a chip.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Switching audio amplifier

• Switching audio amplification –

full fidelity output from a digital
music source.
• Direct energy processing to the
loudspeaker.
• Efficiency of about 90%.
• Compare to clunky old-fashioned
class AB amplifier.

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 Applications of Power Electronics
Fuel cells
• Fuel cells have voltage limits, current
limits, and rate limits.
• If highest efficiency is paramount, it
can take a minute or more to adjust the fuel flow for best
operation.
• Electrically, this requires
an energy buffer so quick
electrical loads can be
served while waiting for
the fuel cell to catch up.

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 Power Electronics Devices
• Several widely-sold devices are unique to power electronics.
About half of the discrete semiconductor market.

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