Tudor Lipan

Power integration for solar applications

Power integration in power electronic circuits is important for new circuit designs since it tends to decrease the bill of materials, cost, and size of an application, with the added benefit of an increase in reliability. A functional description of a novel architecture called a Micro-Inverter Controller (IXC64) integrated circuit is discussed. The IXC64 has a 32-bit RISC microcontroller core with 64 kB of RAM, as well as advanced switching timers and sensing features for control of different topologies for solar applications. These topologies may include stages such as an Active Clamp Forward converter, Buck converter, Unfolding Bridge, Dual Buck converter, Double Anti-phase Buck converter, Chopper, and Current-fed Push-pull converter. Characterized test results and results of applications using the IXC64 is presented.

300 W 4Q PV inverter using new high density control integrated circuits

Increased component integration is essential for new power circuit platforms to decrease cost and size, and increase efficiency and reliability. A 300 W four quadrant (4Q) photo-voltaic grid-tied micro-inverter using two new ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) was built and characterized. This inverter incorporates maximum power point tracking and dynamically operates throughout a power factor range of 0.9 leading to 0.9 lagging, based on grid voltage, to comply with the California Electrical Commissions (CEC) rule 21 requirements. The CEC weighted efficiency of the inverter is higher than 95.5%. Total demand distortion is less than 2% up to the 39th harmonic.

High level integration for solar inverter power applications

High level IC integration in power electronic circuits is increasingly important for new circuit designs. This integration is essential in order to decrease the components used which inherently increases the reliability and decreases the cost and size of an application. A functional description and fully characterized test results of a novel architecture called an Analog Power Manager (APM) integrated circuit is discussed. The IC integrates two 90V High-Side Drivers (HSD), two 2A drive Low-Side Drivers (LSD), three 20MHz bandwidth 90V dividers and two 90 V precision dividers together with a hysteretic Flyback controller with 90 V switch. The APMs functions are used for sensing, power management and MOSFET driving in PV applications. All three functions will be presented in this work.