ConvenientPower Systems (China)

A weak voltage analog dimming method for high precision light emitting diode (LED) current control with N-Bits analog static offset calibration (N-Bits ASOC), dynamic offset cancellation (DOC) and K-times dimming duty to voltage (KD2V) conversion is presented. The N-Bits ASOC circuit decreases the analog dimming error to V OSMAX /2 N - 1 by pre-calibrating the error amplifier offset. Moreover, through a smart combination of KD2V circuits and DOC amplifier, the KD2V and DOC operational amplifier magnify the dimming reference and LED current sense voltage K-times, respectively, which reduces the residual dimming error K-times without any modification to the LED current sampling resistor. Based on the 0.18μm 5V/40V Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process, experimental results for a cell phone backlighting driver show that the analog dimming ILED error reduces to 30μA at maximum 200mV LED current feedback voltage. This deviation mostly keeps constant through a dimming duty range of 0.5% to 100% and VIN range of 2.7V to 5.5V. Furthermore, a 200-sample measurement data suggests that this method is effective even when dimming duty is smaller than 0.5% for mass production.

A new methodology for ensuring that a three-coil wireless power transfer system is more energy efficient than a two-coil counterpart is presented in this paper. The theoretical proof and the conditions for meeting the objective are derived and practically verified in a practical prototype. The key features of the magnetic design are to: 1) shift the current stress from the primary driving circuit to the relay resonator; and 2) generate a large relay current for maximizing magnetic coupling with the receiver coil for efficient power transfer. Consequently, the current rating and cost of the driving circuit can be reduced and the overall quality factor and system energy efficiency are improved. This approach utilizes the combined advantages of the maximum efficiency principle and the use of relay resonator to overcome the energy efficiency problem for applications with extended energy transfer distances.

The principle of using hollow spiral winding is not novel, but the study on this topic is far from complete. In this paper, how hollow the central region of the coreless printed spiral winding (CPSW) inductor should be for a given footprint area in order to achieve the maximal quality factor Q max and to maintain high inductance value is explored. A hollow factor based on the ratio of the inner hollow radius and the outer winding radius τ = R in/R out, is proposed as for optimization and quantifying how hollow a spiral winding is. The relationship between τ and Q max, which depends on the operating frequency and the dimensional parameters of CPSW inductor, is established. For a specific operating frequency, it is discovered that if the conductor width is comparable with the skin depth, or the conductors are placed relatively far away from each others, the hollow design of the CPSW inductor has little improvement on Q but reduces the inductance. If the conductor width is much larger than the skin depth and the conductors are closely placed, the hollow spiral design is recommended. The optimal range of τ with which the Q max can be achieved is found to be around 0.45-0.55. © 2006 IEEE.

A semiconductor transformer concept in which all parts of the transformer are made of semiconductor materials is described. This proposal transforms the conventional concept of ‘magnetic transformers’ to ‘semiconductor transformers’ for easy circuit integration.

This paper presents a finite-element (FE) simulation study of a planar contactless battery charging platform for portable consumer electronic equipment. Magnetic field plots of the charging platform are generated under no-load and loaded conditions so that the field distribution of the planar charging platform can be visualized. Three working modes of the platform have been investigated and compared, including full excitation and two forms of selective excitation. With new results arising from this FE simulation study and practical experiments, the theory of the magnetomotive force (mmf) generation of the multilayer planar printed-circuit-board winding array structure can be further understood. The results obtained in this paper provide a foundation of understanding for future design and optimization of planar contactless charging platforms. In addition, it has been confirmed that an electromagnetic shield structure that has been applied to coreless planar transformer applications, can work equally well for the planar charging platform.