A Dickson-type power converter with bootstrapped gate transfer switches

In this paper, a Dickson-type power converter with bootstrapped gate transfer switches is proposed. The circuit is designed by adding a polarity exchange circuit and N (N = 2, 3, ...) power-switches to the conventional Dickson-type circuit. These additional circuits enable the converter to provide not only a dc-dc output but a dc-ac output. In the process of dc-ac conversion, the circuit can generate various ac outputs by exploiting pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) method. Furthermore, high efficiency can be achieved by adopting novel bootstrap circuits to power-switches in the converter. Via maximum circuits constructed with diodes, the voltage of forward stage is charged to a capacitor in the bootstrap circuit. By connecting the charged-capacitor between the gate terminals of power-switches and the output terminal of the maximum circuit, the bootstrap circuits reduce the on-resistance of the power-switches. The SPICE simulations for the proposed circuit show the following results: 1. the efficiency of dc-dc conversion is more than 90% when the output load Ro = 500 /spl Omega/ and 2. various types of ac outputs can be generated.