Simultaneous design of power stage and controller for switchingpower supplies

This paper develops a method for simultaneously designing the power stage and controller for a switching power supply. The method utilizes a numerical optimization procedure, which facilitates computer-aided design. It is found that better performance can be achieved than with a traditional two-step design process, where the power stage and controller are designed sequentially. Optimization and simulation results for a buck power converter are presented to illustrate the design process and benefits     

Performance of interface engineeredSiNx/ICL/InP/In0.53Ga0.47As/InP dopedchannel HIGFET's

SiN_x/InP/InGaAs doped channel passivated heterojunction insulated gate field effect transistors (HIGFETs) have been fabricated for the first time using an improved In-S interface control layer (ICL). The insulated gate HIGFETs exhibit very low gate leakage (10 nA@V_GS =±5 V) and I_DS (sat) of 250 mA/mm. The doped channel improves the DC characteristics and the HIGFETs show transconductance of 140-150 mS/mm (L_g=2 μm), f_t of 5-6 GHz (L_g=3 μm), and power gain of 14.2 dB at 3 GHz. The ICL HIGFET technology is promising for high frequency applications     

Threshold voltage-minimum gate length trade-off in buried channelPMOS devices for scaled supply voltage CMOS technologies

The trade-off between threshold voltage (V_th) and the minimum gate length (L_min) is discussed for optimizing the performance of buried channel PMOS transistors for low voltage/low power high-speed digital CMOS circuits. In a low supply voltage CMOS technology it is desirable to scale V_th and L_min for improved circuit performance. However, these two parameters cannot be scaled independently due to the channel punch-through effect. Statistical process/device modeling, split lot experiments, circuit simulations, and measurements are performed to optimize the PMOS transistor current drive and CMOS circuit speed. We show that trading PMOS transistor V_th for a smaller L_min results in faster circuits for low supply voltage (3.3 to 1.8 V) n⁺-polysilicon gate CMOS technology, Circuit simulation and measurements are performed in this study. Approximate empirical expressions are given for the optimum buried channel PMOS transistor V _th for minimizing CMOS circuit speed for cases involving: (1) constant capacitive load and (2) load capacitance proportional to MOS gate capacitance. The results of the numerical exercise are applied to the centering of device parameters of a 0.5 μm 3.3 V CMOS technology that (a) matches the speed of our 0.5 μm 5 V CMOS technology, and (b) achieves good performance down to 1.8 V power supply. For this process the optimum PMOS transistor V_th (absolute value) is approximately 0.85-0.90 V     

Analysis and design-optimization of LCC resonant inverter forhigh-frequency AC distributed power system

The analysis and design of an LCC resonant inverter for a 20 kHz AC distributed power system are presented. Several resonant converter topologies are assessed to determine their suitability for high efficiency power conversion, under resistive and reactive loads. Two LCC-resonant inverter designs were implemented. One with all switches operating with zero voltage switching (ZVS), and another with two switches operating with ZVS and two switches with zero current switching (ZCS). The experimental results are presented along with a performance comparison of the two versions     

Pyrolysis of tertiarybutylphosphine at low pressure

The pyrolysis of tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP) has been studied in the low pressure conditions used for chemical beam epitaxy (CBE). The pyrolysis studies were carried out in low pressure reactors of two different configurations, one of which is a cracker cell designed for use in a CBE system. The reaction products were studied using a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The products observed are accounted for by a reaction mechanism involving homolysis of the parent TBP molecule to produce PH₂ and C₄H₉ radicals. These undergo subsequent reactions to form the stable products C₄H₈, PH₃ and H₂, with smaller amounts of P and P₂ being produced. The production of the sub-hydride PH₂ using this cracker cell design indicates that the use of partially cracked TBP may be a promising technique for reducing the amount of carbon incorporated into the growing epitaxial layer.     

Electrical passivation in hydrogen plasma exposed GaN

Lightly p-doped (3×10¹⁷ cm^-3) GaN grown on GaAs substrates by metal organic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE) shows deactivation of the residual acceptors on exposure to a microwave (2.45 GHz) hydrogen plasma at 250°C. Subsequent annealing to 350°C produces further dopant passivation, while higher temperatures (450°C) restore the initial conductivity. These results suggest that hydrogen carrier gases should be avoided during vapour phase growth of III-V nitrides     

Matrix effects in the determination of butyltin compounds in environmental samples by GC AA after hydride generation

Experiments for the determination of mono-, di and tri-butyltin (MBT, DBT and TBT) by hydride generation/gas chromatography/atomic absorption spectrometry in various matrices (sediment, suspended matter, mussel, algae and water) have revealed that poor butyltin recoveries are obtained in sediments displaying high sulphur and hydrocarbon contents; very poor recoveries were also observed for TBT in sediments with high chlorophyll pigment contents as well as in algal samples. It was however not clear whether the hydride generatin was inhibited by these infering compounds, as was previously assumed in the case of hydrocarbons, or whether interferences affected the atomization rate. Further studies were performed to solve this problem in order to validate this method in the case of analyses of, for example, oil-contaminated sediment and algae. This paper presents the results obtained. It is concluded here that the poor recoveries were due to an inhibition of hydride generation rather than to interference at the atomization stage.     

Modified frequency domain kurtosis for signal processing

An operator sensitive to signal probability distribution is obtained, by integrating ideas from higher-order statistics and a frequency approach to signal processing. This function, based on a modified frequency domain kurtosis, assigns a level of stationarity to each signal spectrum component and enhances unsteady components over stationary sinusoids embedded in noise     

Positive solutions and dynamics of a finite difference reaction–diffusion system

We investigate the dynamics and methods of computation for some nonlinear finite difference systems that are the discretized equations of a time-dependent and a steady-state reaction–diffusion problem. The formulation of the discrete equations for the time-dependent problem is based on the implicit method for parabolic equations, and the computational algorithm is based on the method of monotone iterations using upper and lower solutions as the initial iterations. The monotone iterative method yields improved upper and lower bounds of the solution in each iteration, and the sequence of iterations converges monotonically to a solution for both the time-dependent and the steady-state problems. An important consequence of this method is that it leads to a bifurcation point that determines the dynamic behavior of the time-dependent problem in relation to the corresponding steady-state problem. This bifurcation point also determines whether the steady-state problem has one or two non-negative solutions, and is explicitly given in terms of the physical parameters of the system and the type of boundary conditions. Numerical results are presented for both the time-dependent and the steady-state problems under various boundary conditions, including a test problem with known analytical solution. These numerical results exhibit the predicted dynamic behavior of the time-dependent solution given by the theoretical analysis. Also discussed are the numerical stability of the computational algorithm and the convergence of the finite difference solution to the corresponding continuous solution of the reaction–diffusion problem. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Circuit topologies for single-phase voltage-doubler boostrectifiers

A new family of single-phase voltage-doubler PWM (pulse width modulated) boost rectifiers is presented. By examining the switching states of several standard single-phase boost rectifier circuits, three characteristic PWM voltage switching patterns are identified: unipolar PWM; bipolar PWM; and phase-adjusted unipolar PWM. From this analysis, an equivalent family of voltage-doubler rectifiers is derived. When high output voltages are required, voltage-doubler rectifiers are shown to be able to generate AC line currents with the lowest current distortion. The circuits presented are examined using circuit simulators and experimental results