Highly efficient and reliable power supply for LED street lighting

LEDs provide high efficiency and long life compared to older, conventional lighting sources. Therefore, they are becoming first choice among lamp types to reduce energy consumption for internal or external lighting.

This is also the case in street lighting, where better efficiency and longer life are essential for lower cost. A switching power supply designed to power the LED lamp should also have high efficiency and robustness to assure maintenance-free lifetime which is as long as the LED lamp. Resonant converters are one of the most popular power-supply topologies here, since their performance delivers increased power efficiency and reduces EMI compared to previous power-supply topologies.

Soft switching is an important feature of resonant converters, but the use of the body diode in resonant converters sometimes leads to the system failures. The stored charge in body diode should be completely removed to avoid high current and voltage spikes, including high dv/dt and di/dt in these topologies.

Therefore, critical parameters of power MOSFETs such as Qrr and reverse recovery dv/dt directly affect the dynamic performance of resonant converters. This article will explore total solution for a switching power supply targeted to LED street lighting. A new resonant controller, combined with a new power switch, enables a high-efficiency solution for a LED-lighting power supply, while not sacrificing robustness and cost-effectiveness of the converter.

This article, which first appeared at EETimes-Europe, looks at the use of such resonant converters, supported by new MOSFETs, for high efficiency and reliability in this application. To read it, click here.

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