A self-driven active clamp forward converter using the auxiliary winding of the power transformer

Abstract

This study proposes a new self-driven active clamp forward converter eliminating the extra drive circuit for the active clamp switch. The converter used the auxiliary winding of the power transformer to drive the active clamp switch and a simple RC circuit to get the dead time between the two switches. The operation principle was presented and experimental results were used to verify theoretical predictions. A 100-W (5 V/20 A) prototype converter that only exhibited 1.5-turn winding number in the auxiliary winding was sufficient to drive the active clamp switch on the input of 50 V. Finally, the measured efficiency of the converter was presented and the maximum efficiency of 91% was obtained.