The DC Transformer Power Electronic Building Block: Powering Next-Generation Converter Design

Power electronics has evolved from being only present in a few applications such as variable speed drives in the 1970s to becoming ubiquitous, present in almost every industrial application, and powering our daily life. In this ever-expanding market, power converters have become a mature technology covering a wide range of applications, providing solutions from a few watts (e.g., LED drivers) to gigawatts (e.g., high-voltage direct current systems). Competition has driven technology development in pursuit of cost reduction, increased efficiency, performance improvements, high power quality, higher power density, reliability, and an accelerated time to market. To meet these requirements, power converter design has been driven toward a more modular approach based on embedded systems, intelligent power modules, and power electronics building blocks (PEBBs) [1] .