Stacked Buck Converter: Current Ripple Elimination Effect and Transient Response

To balance the cost and volume when applying a low output current ripple, the power supply design should be able to eliminate the current ripple under any duty cycle in medium and high switching frequencies, and considerably reduce filter volume to improve power density. A stacked buck converter was eventually selected after reviewing the existing solutions and discussing their advantages and disadvantages. A stacked buck converter is used as a basis to propose the transient response and output current ripple elimination effect, boundary limit control method, and low output ripple dead time modulation method to make individual improvements. The principle, mathematical derivation, small-signal model, and compensator design method of the improvement method are presented in detail. Moreover, simulation results are used to mutually verify the correctness and effectiveness of the improvement method. A stacked buck converter with 330-V input, 50-V output, and 1-kW output power was implemented to verify the effect of the low output current ripple dead time modulation. Experimental results showed that the peak-to-peak value of the output current ripple was reduced from 2.09 A to 559 mA, and the RMS value was reduced from 551 mA to 91 mA, thereby effectively improving the output current ripple.