Storage and Dissipation Limits in Resonant Switched-Capacitor Converters

Abstract

The purpose of this manuscript is twofold, first we introduce an energy-based modeling framework for the analysis of resonant switched-capacitor (SC) converters and second we demonstrate that energy storage and dissipation in resonant SC with ideal switches are bounded by a fundamental physical limit that, up until now, has been only associated with the special case of pure SC topologies. For instance, we show that the maximum energy stored in the small size inductors in resonant SC converters is equal to the energy that would be dissipated by their purely SC counterpart. The presented analysis permits the computation of resonant inductances in terms of maximum current peak values, which is experimentally validated. Furthermore, we introduce a relative loss factor that permits determining the efficiency of a design for a general case in the presence of parasitic resistances. These results corroborate that migrating to resonant SC technologies is one of the most compelling alternatives to overcome well-known disadvantages in pure SC topologies.