Analysis and design of a prototype single-stage half-bridge power converter

A prototype single-stage half-bridge power converter is presented in this paper. This novel single-stage half-bridge power converter is formed from the integration of one half-bridge ac/dc power factor corrector (PFC) and one half-bridge dc/dc post-regulator by the component placement technique. The operations in the proposed power converter are discussed thereby verifying the feasibility and functionality thereof. The inductor design criteria can be resulted from the circuit operations in steady state. In addition to output regulation, the proposed single-stage half-bridge power converter has inherent gift of great power factor correction function, even the PFC inductor operates in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). Compared to the conventional two-stage half-bridge converter, the original two controllers can be integrated into one single controller, besides it can reduce cost and size, simplify the design and increase the efficiency further. The operation and principle of the proposed single-stage converter are then analyzed. Finally, experimental results show good conformation with the theoretical analysis.