Charger Topologies of Today and Tomorrow

There is no universal charger for all kinds of batteries. Just a quick glance at the various requirement profiles – for example, for charging smartphones with a few Watts or electrically powered trucks with a three-to-four-digit kilowatt scale – shows: Depending on the target application, individually designed circuitry and specific semiconductors are required, and the thermal and mechanical aspects also differ.

This whitepaper provides a summary of technical and commercial requirements for industrial and automotive battery chargers and describes the pros and cons of different technical solutions. An overview is given for a broad range of PFC and DC/DC topologies including more detailed aspects for the most common solutions, as well as the increasingly interesting technology of wireless charging with high power.

In the whitepaper you will learn more about:

• Design requirements of industrial and automotive battery chargers
• PFC topologies for single- and three-phase supply
• DC/DC topologies for uni- and bidirectional operation
• Semiconductor (Si, SiC and GaN) impact on topology selection
• Wireless charging technology and aspects