Switching cells and their implications for power electronic circuits

This paper will introduce two basic switching cells, P-cell and N-cell, along with their implications and applications in power electronic circuits. The concept of switching cells in power electronic circuits started in the late 1970's. The basic cells presented in this paper have one switching element (transistor) and one diode. The P-cell is the mirror circuit of the N-cell and vice-versa, and this paper suggests that (1) most power electronic circuits can be analyzed and re-constructed using these basic switching cells, (2) single, dual, and 6-pack switching modules should be configured and laid-out according to the basic switching cells and not necessarily the conventional way used by industry, and (3) many benefits such as minimal parasitic inductance and dead-time elimination or minimization may come about. The present paper will describe the construction and operation of these basic switching cells, and it will also show a sequential method to reconstruct several classical dc-dc converters, a voltage source inverter (VSI), and a current source inverter (CSI) using these basic switching cells. In addition, the use of basic switching cells introduces some new topologies of dc-dc converters that originate from the buck, boost, and Cuk converter for negative input voltages. This paper will also illustrate the experimental results of the new and existing topologies constructed from basic switching cells.