Fundamental Study of High Step-down Non-isolated Multicellular DC-DC Converter for Future DC Distribution Systems

A novel high step-down non-isolated DC-DC converter has been proposed. The proposed converter consists of highly efficient non-isolated cell converters using bidirectional semiconductor power devices, and these cell converters are connected in ISOP (input series and output parallel). The non-isolated ISOP converter achieves high step-down ratio of D/N, operating N cell converters under the duty ratio of D. Availability of the proposed converter has been shown by developing the 48 V-12 V laboratory prototype using two 24 V-12 V cell converters. Design consideration for the 48 V-3 V multicellular converter using four 12 V-3 V cell converters has been also conducted, and the potential to approach the efficiency of 97% has been discussed. The proposed topology is suitable for the POL (point of load) converters in the highly efficient next generation DC distribution system for data centers.