A distributed structure of step-up/step-down DC-DC converters using power saving techniques

Improving power efficiency is one of the most important issues in DC-DC converters, because cooling of inefficient power converters is difficult and expensive. To reduce parasitic power losses caused by stray parasitic capacitances, a distributed structure of switched-capacitor (SC) step-up/step-down DC-DC converters using power saving techniques has been proposed in this paper. Unlike conventional converters, the proposed converter consisting of two converter blocks has two conversion processes: 1) charging and transferring process; and 2) charge reusing process. In each converter block, the charging and transferring process and the charge reusing process are repeated alternately, where the energy stored in parasitic capacitances is reused in the charge reusing process. Therefore, by alleviating parasitic losses, higher power efficiency can be achieved by the proposed converter. The results of the simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis(SPICE) simulation showed that more than 5% of the power efficiency was improved by the proposed converter when the output load is 10kΩ. © 2014 ISSN 1881-803X.