Automatika

Journal for Control, Measurement, Electronics, Computing and

Communications

ISSN: 0005-1144 (Print) 1848-3380 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/taut20

An Overview of the AC-DC and DC-DC Converters

for LED Lighting Applications

Asst. Prof. Manuel Arias, Aitor Vázquez & Prof. Javier Sebastián

To cite this article: Asst. Prof. Manuel Arias, Aitor Vázquez & Prof. Javier Sebastián (2012) An
Overview of the AC-DC and DC-DC Converters for LED Lighting Applications, Automatika, 53:2,
156-172, DOI: 10.7305/automatika.53-2.154

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Published online: 20 Jan 2017.

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 Online ISSN 1848-3380, Print ISSN 0005-1144
ATKAFF 53(2), 156–172(2012)

Manuel Arias, Aitor Vázquez, Javier Sebastián

An Overview of the AC-DC and DC-DC Converters for LED

Lighting Applications
DOI 10.7305/automatika.53-2.154
UDK 621.32.032.3:621.38
IFAC 4.6.2 Original scientific paper

High-Brightness Light Emitting Diodes (HB-LEDs) are considered the future trend in lighting not only due to
their high efficiency and high reliability, but also due to their other outstanding characteristics: chromatic variety,
shock and vibration resistance, etc. Nevertheless, they need the development of new power supplies especially
designed for boosting and taking advantage of their aforementioned characteristics. Besides, their behaviour is
completely different from the rest of lighting devices and, consequently, it should be also taken into account in
the design of the converters used to drive them. As a result, many well-known topologies have been optimized or
redesigned in order to be used in LED–lighting applications and many new topologies have come up in the recent
years with the same purpose.
In this paper, the main HB-LED characteristics will be explained, highlighting how they influence the design
of their power supplies. After, the main topologies will be presented from the simplest to the most complex ones,
analysing their advantages and disadvantages.
Key words: AC-DC converters, DC-DC converters, LED, Lighting

Pregled AC-DC i DC-DC pretvarača za primjene u LED rasvjeti. Svjetleće diode s visokom razinom svjet-
line (HB-LED) smatraju se budućim trendom u rasvjeti zahvaljujući ne samo visokom stupnju efikasnosti i pouz-
danosti, nego i njihovim izvanrednim svojstvima: raznolikost boja, otpornost na udarce i vibracije i sl. Ipak, s
ciljem potpunog iskorištenja prethodno spomenutih svojstava, potrebno je razviti nove, posebno osmišljene izvore
napajanja. Osim toga, ponašanje im se posve razlikuje od ostalih tipova rasvjete što je potrebno uzeti u obzir pri
projektiranju pretvarača za njihovo napajanje. Kao posljedica toga, mnoge su poznate topologije pretvarača opti-
mirane ili preoblikovane posebno za primjenu u LED rasvjeti, a zadnjih nekoliko godina mnoge nove su se tek
pojavile.
U ovom članku objašnjena su osnovna HB-LED svojstva naglašavajući njihov utjecaj na razvoj izvora napa-
janja. Uz to, prikazane su osnovne topologije, od najjednostavnijih do najsloženijih, ujedno analizirajući prednosti
i nedostatke pojedinih.

Ključne riječi: AC-DC pretvarači, DC-DC pretvarači, LED, rasvjeta

1 INTRODUCTION • They are environmentally friendly, as they are pro-

High-Brightness Light Emitting Diodes (HB-LEDs) are duced without mercury.
spreading over all lighting applications (vehicles lights,
• They are based on semiconductors. Therefore, they
home and street lighting, traffic and commercial signs,
are resistant to shock and vibrations.
etc.). In fact, they are considered as the future trend in
lighting due to their outstanding advantages [1-3]: • They have wide chromatic variety.
• Their theoretical luminous efficacy is the highest. In • They are easily turn-on and turn-off, which allows
fact, right now they have the highest real efficacy their use in intelligent lighting.
(around 150 lm/W) only exceeded by low-pressure
sodium technology (around 190 lm/W).
Nevertheless, it has to be taken into account that LED
• Their lifetime is very long, around 50,000 hours de- drivers cannot be as simple as those of the incandescent
pending on the driving technique, operating tempera- lamps. It is mandatory to develop new drivers specifically
ture, etc. designed for these lighting devices due to two reasons:

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• Because the demands of LEDs regarding voltage and of the supplied current while the temperature of the emit-
current are completely different from the rest of light- ted light depends on the peak value of the supplied cur-
ing devices. HB-LEDs have a nominal DC current rent. In order to control the amount of light emitted by
which may vary from 100 mA to 1 or 2 A (a very the LED, two dimming techniques are then possible (see
common value is 350 mA). Regarding the voltage, Fig. 1) [9, 10]:
it depends on the number of LEDs connected in se-
ries, but the standard knee voltage of these devices • Analog dimming: the LED is supplied with a DC cur-
is around 3-4 V. Depending on the number of LEDs rent whose value will depend on the amount of light
supplied by the driver and their specific way of as- that is desired. Its main disadvantage is that this vari-
sociation (see later), the output voltage of the driver ation in the current not only controls the amount of
may be as high as 140 V or as low as 12 V. Regarding light, it also affects the temperature of the light (i.e.:
the output current of the driver, it may be as low as the peak value coincides with the average value).
350 mA or as high as 5 A.
• PWM dimming: the LED is supplied with a relatively-
• Because the drivers should have the same advan- high-frequency (a few kHz) PWM-controlled current
tages as HB-LEDs have. As a consequence, the de- with a certain peak value and a certain duty cycle. In
sign should aim at high efficiency and high reliabil- this way, the amount of light is controlled by the av-
ity as primary concerns [4]. As a consequence, a very erage value of the PWM current (i.e.: by the duty cy-
common requirement imposed to these drivers is the cle) while the temperature of the light is defined by
absence of electrolytic capacitor in order to boost reli- its peak value. This PWM current needs to have a fre-
ability and achieving a lifetime around 10 years [5, 6]. quency higher than 400 Hz so that it is filtered by the
As will be seen, this strongly determines the possible human eye and flickering is not a problem.
topologies that may be valid in AC-DC applications.
Regarding the possible LED arrangements [11, 12], a
In this paper, a review of the main topologies for driv- given number of LEDs can be connected in several ways
ing LEDs is going to be presented. In Section 2, some spe- as already mentioned (Fig. 2). If all the LEDs are con-
cific details regarding HB-LEDs will be presented (driving nected in series (LED string), the main problem is that the
techniques, arrangements, etc.). In Section 3, the topolo- failure of just one LED may affect the whole string if the
gies for supplying the LEDs from a DC source will be pre- LED fails in open circuit. If the same number of LEDs is
sented. In Section 4, the topologies for using AC sources connected as several strings in parallel, the main problem
will be explained and, finally in Section 5, a brief summary is that a way of equalizing the current [13] through each
will be presented. string has to be used (i.e.: connecting all the strings to the
same voltage without equalization, as shown in Fig. 2, may
2 DRIVING TECHNIQUES, FLICKERING AND lead to different currents in some strings due to differences
LED ARRANGEMENTS in their characteristics).

Before presenting a classification of the converters suit-

3 DC-DC TOPOLOGIES
able to drive HB-LEDs, a brief explanation regarding flick-
ering, driving techniques and LED arrangements should be 3.1 Topologies without galvanic isolation
given.
3.1.1 Passive topologies
HB-LEDs can be defined as fast lighting devices. This
means that the amount of light emitted by an LED is, to The easiest way of supplying an LED arrangement from
some extent, nearly proportional to the current which is a DC source is using a resistor for limiting the current
driving with a very fast dynamic response. The main dis- driven by the LEDs (Fig. 3a). The calculation of this re-
advantage of this is that if the current driven by the LED is sistor should take into account the high value of HB-LED
affected by a low frequency ripple, this ripple is not going knee voltage. Although it is the cheapest and simplest so-
to be filtered by the LED device and is going to affect the lution, efficiency is very poor and the output current is un-
emitted light too. This leads to the very well-known prob- regulated. Therefore, it will be affected by variations in the
lem of flickering [7, 8]. Therefore, special efforts have to input voltage and it is only useful in very low-power appli-
be made in order to supply LEDs with a current free of cations, such as flashlights.
ripple under 400 Hz. This solution may be also used as equalizing method
This fast response also has an advantage. The amount (Fig. 3b) when the LED arrangement includes several LED
of light emitted by an LED depends on the average value strings in parallel (i.e.: each string has its own equalizing

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Emitted Perceived
ILED Light Light

Amount of light =f(ILED)

Temp . of light =f(ILED)

a)

Emitted Perceived
ILED Light Light
ILED_pk
Amount of light =f(ILED_avg)
ILED_avg
Temp . of light =f(ILED_pk)

b)

Fig. 1. a) Analog and b) PWM dimming techniques for obtaining the same amount of emitted and perceived light

Voltage=N.Vy_LED + N.RLED.ILED Voltage=(N/P) .Vy_LED + (N/P).RLED.ILED

Current=ILED Current= P.ILED

a) b)

Fig. 2. Different LED-arrangement configurations (equalizers not shown in the second arrangement). a) N LEDs in a
single string; b) N LEDs in P strings.

Vin

Vin

a) b)

Fig. 3. a) DC-DC passive solution for driving a single LED string; b) The same passive solution for equalizing the current
of several LED strings in parallel

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resistor). Considering that in this case the voltage applied without electrolytic capacitors which, as has been already
to the LED arrangement is regulated (it will be explained mentioned, have a lifetime considerably shorter than HB-
later), the difference between the applied voltage and the LEDs.
nominal voltage of the strings will be very small and the If the LED arrangement includes several strings in par-
losses in the resistors will also be very small. Neverthe- allel, it is possible to use one DC-DC converter for the
less, this is only used as equalizing technique in very cheap whole LED arrangement and an equalizer (as presented
solutions. before) for each string. Efficiency is going to be slightly
affected. Nevertheless, it should be taken into account that
3.1.2 Active topologies the converter is regulated and, therefore, the voltage ap-
plied to the arrangement is going to be very close to the
Linear regulator nominal voltage of the strings. Consequently, the voltage
difference absorbed by the resistors/linear regulators in or-
If the resistor is replaced with a linear regulator, the cur- der to equalize the currents is very small, leading to small
rent supplied to the LEDs will be constant and independent power dissipation. Another option is using one converter
from the input voltage (as shown in Fig. 4). Nevertheless, for each string. Although efficiency is not affected, it im-
the transistor of the linear regulator behaves as a current plies a considerable increase in cost and size.
source whose value depends on the control loop (i.e.: the
The possible topologies (Fig. 6) that can be used as on-
transistor is not turning on and off as in switching mode
stage solutions for LED lighting will depend on the in-
power supplies). Therefore, efficiency is still a problem,
put and output voltage values [16]. If the output voltage
especially when there is a big difference between the volt-
is higher than the input one, the boost converter [17, 18]
age of the DC source Vin and the voltage demanded by
is the most common and the simplest topology that can
the LED arrangement VLED. This technique is commonly
be used. Nevertheless, some start-up problems due to high
used as an equalizer due to its simplicity [12, 14, 15].
inrush currents may appear and some additional circuitry
may be needed in order to deal with these problems. If the
One-stage switching topologies output voltage is lower, then the buck topology is the most
suitable one. If the output voltage, due to regulation, can be
It is possible to replace the linear regulator with a higher or lower than the input voltage, then the buck-boost
switching mode power supply (see Fig. 5) in order to reg- topology [19] is the recommended one. Of course, there
ulate the output current/voltage without power dissipation are other topologies that can be used, such as the SEPIC
(ideally). This solves the problem of the previous circuits [20] or Ćuk [21] topology.
regarding the efficiency. In this way, efficiency is boosted
without losing the LED arrangement current regulation.
Two-stage switching topologies
Obviously, the cost and size of this solution is higher than
the cost of the previous ones, but it can be disregarded if In DC-DC LED-lighting applications, the two stage
the improvement in efficiency is considered. topology makes sense only when the input voltage has a
As the input voltage is DC, there is not going to be any wide range of variation. In that case, the purpose of the
problem with reliability: the output filter of the DC-DC first stage is supplying a constant DC voltage to the sec-
converter does not have to filter any other frequency differ- ond stages, as many as LED strings in parallel, which are
ent from the switching frequency, so it can be implemented
Iin ILED
VLR
ILED

Vc DC
Vin Vin
Verror VIout DC
PID -
+ VIref VLED
Control loop

Fig. 4. DC-DC active solution with a linear regulator Fig. 5. DC-DC one-stage active topology

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Vin Vout Vin Vout Vin Vout

BUCK BOOST BUCK-BOOST

Fig. 6. Most common non-isolated DC-DC topologies. The buck and the buck-boost topologies can be modified for HB-
LEDs applications so that their MOSFET is referred to ground.

in charge of precisely regulating the LED string current 3.2.1 Active topologies
(Fig. 7). The cost and size are higher than in the one-stage
topology with equalizer resistors (or linear-regulator equal- One-stage switching topologies
izers) but its efficiency is not compromised.
The same advantages and disadvantages mentioned for
the one-stage topology without galvanic isolation can be
The same topologies presented for the one-stage solu- considered for the one with galvanic isolation (Fig. 8). The
tion can be used in the two-stage solution. The main issue main difference is that the chosen topology has to include
is that, normally, the second stages used as equalizers are a transformer. Considering that the switching frequency of
buck converters. Hence, the output voltage of the first stage these converters is around tens or hundreds of kHz, the size
should be a little bit higher than the nominal voltage of the of the transformer is not big (compared to the size of a line-
LED strings. frequency transformer).
An additional advantage is that it is possible to use a
transformer with several secondary windings. As a con-
3.2 Topologies with galvanic isolation sequence, several output voltages can be obtained, even
with different voltage and current specifications in order to
In this Section, only active topologies are going to be supply, at the same time, different LED strings of a given
presented because the galvanic isolation implies the use of arrangement. Nevertheless, the independent regulation of
a transformer. This transformer cannot operate from DC each output cannot be reached. Only one output would
voltages and, therefore, it is necessary an active component be regulated and the rest will have a fixed ratio with the
in order to keep the average value of the voltage applied to regulated one. Therefore, equalizing techniques are still
the transformer equal to zero (for avoiding its saturation). mandatory if several LED strings of an arrangement are
Besides, the use of isolated topologies makes sense only going to be supplied with the same multiple-output con-
when the input voltage is high or when the galvanic isola- verter. Moreover, another option for several LED strings in
tion is a normative (or customer) requirement. parallel may be using as many converters as LED strings.
Nevertheless, this would lead to having as many transform-
ers as LED strings. Due to the cost of these components,
it may be a very expensive solution when many strings are
placed in parallel.
ILED_1
DC
Iin Iin ILED
DC

ILED_2
DC DC
Vin DC DC DC/DC
Vin
ILED_N
DC
DC

Fig. 7. DC-DC two-stage active solution. Second stages Fig. 8. DC-DC one-stage active topology with galvanic
work as equalizers of the current. isolation

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Fig. 9. Examples of typical isolated topologies

Traditional converter topologies (Fig. 9) for this kind

of application are the flyback family (isolated SEPIC, Ćuk Iin
and Zeta) [22-24], the Half-Bridge (HB) (including the CC
asymmetrically driven one) [25-29] and the Push-Pull [16]. CC ILED_1

DC/DC
Two-stage switching topologies Vin

CC
Considering that not only current regulation, but also
CC ILED_N
galvanic isolation are requirements, the two-stage solution
may be considered for driving LED arrangements of sev-
eral LED strings in parallel (Fig. 10). Transformers are Fig. 10. DC-DC two-stage active solution with galvanic
bulky and expensive components; therefore, galvanic isola- isolation
tion should be included in the first stage (which is common
to all the strings) so only one transformer is needed. Sec-
ond stages, one for each string, can be implemented with- [32]. The voltage at the output of the four-diode rectifier
out galvanic isolation and with the only purpose of regu- is very small in comparison to the line voltage due to the
lating the current of each string. voltage drop across the series capacitor Cs and, therefore,
the current supplied to the LEDs is limited. The main ad-
For the first stage, any of the previously-mentioned iso-
vantages of this topology are cost, size and simplicity. Ob-
lated topologies can be used. For the second stages, the
viously, this solution is only valid when PF correction is
most common option is the buck converter modified in
not mandatory (input current has a 90◦ phase-lead) and
order to have the transistor source terminal referred to
when performance is not the main issue. Besides, there is a
ground.
start-up problem with this topology: if the zener diode DZ
and the resistor R are not included in the design, the LED
4 AC-DC TOPOLOGIES arrangement is going to withstand the instantaneous line
The main feature of the topologies presented in this Sec- voltage in the moment in which the circuit is connected to
tion is that they are directly connected to line. Therefore, the grid and until the capacitor is charged. This may lead
Power Factor (PF) correction [30, 31] may have to be taken to LED break down due to excessive voltage.
into account in the driver design if the handled power is It should be taken into account that there is no active
high enough. Apart from that, a classification tree can be current regulation and the quality of the light is very poor.
considered again attending to two criteria: galvanic isola- In fact, the current through the LEDs is not constant. It has
tion and passive/active topologies. a rectified-sinusoidal pattern at twice the line frequency
and, therefore, flickering will be a problem due to the fast
4.1 Topologies without galvanic isolation response of LEDs. Nevertheless, this can be solved by
4.1.1 Passive topologies placing a bulk capacitor Cp in parallel to the LED arrange-
ment so that the rectified-sinusoidal pattern is filtered and
If PF correction is not necessary and the required output the supplied current to the arrangement is, to some extent,
voltage is not very high (few LEDs in series), it is possible constant (Fig. 11b). Besides, both topologies present a haz-
to use a topology as simple as the one shown in Fig. 11a ardous situation: when they are disconnected from the line,

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ILED VIine ILED VIine

ILED ILED
Cs Cs
ILED_pk
VIine Dz VIine Cp

ILED_pk Vline/ s

a) b)

Fig. 11. AC-DC passive solution for driving LED arrangements

the input capacitor Cs remains charged so its contacts rep- constant the current supplied to the load. Obviously, a ca-
resent a risk for human operators. Due to this, a resistor pacitor between both is necessary in order to have available
must be placed in parallel with Cs so that it can be dis- energy during the periods of time in which the line voltage
charged. is close to zero. With this solution, the current (voltage)
If PF correction is mandatory, a possible passive topol- supplied to the lighting device is constant and flickering
ogy is presented in [33]. Nevertheless, its main drawback is no longer a problem. Besides, the energy storage is car-
is the use of low-frequency inductors, which implies high ried out at high voltage (peak value of the line voltage); in
size and cost even for low-power applications. Besides, practice that means that the size of the capacitor is going
three diodes are needed (apart from the rectifier bridge to be smaller. This is a key point because it makes pos-
ones). Although they do not need any kind of controller, sible the use of non-electrolytic capacitors, enlarging the
their number of semiconductors is similar to the one corre- lifetime of the topology. Nevertheless, there is no possibil-
sponding to active topologies. ity of doing PF correction if constant current is supplied
by the converter to the LEDs. Therefore, this solution does
not comply with ENERGYSTAR or IEC61000-3-2 Class
4.1.2 Active topologies C regulations and its field of application is limited.
One-stage switching topologies It is possible to change the situation of the storage ca-
pacitor from the input to the output of the converter (see
One-stage switching topologies may be seen as an evo-
Fig. 13a). In this way, PF correction can be achieved (the
lution of the previous topology in order to solve some of
converter is a Power Factor Corrector or PFC) while keep-
its problems. The first possibility is shown in Fig. 12. In-
ing a constant current at the output of the converter (see
stead of using a capacitor for limiting the maximum cur-
Fig. 13b). As it can be seen, the output current is sensed
rent driven by the LEDs, it may be possible to use a DC-
and compared to the reference VIref . The resulting con-
DC converter in cascade with the rectifier in order to keep
trol signal is multiplied by a half-sinusoidal reference (in
this case, the rectified input voltage), and the output of
ILED the multiplier is the reference for the input current feed-
back loop. In this way, the input current has a sinusoidal
pattern synchronized with the line voltage while the out-
Iline
put current has the desired value. Nevertheless, placing the
DC storage capacitor at the output implies that the energy is
VIine Csto DC stored at a voltage equal to the one demanded by the LED
string. Normally, the LED arrangement is implemented in
such a way that the output voltage is going to be lower
than the peak value of the input voltage. Therefore, for the
same amount of stored energy, the capacitance needed by
VIine Iline VCsto ILED this solution is higher than in the previous one (in which
energy is stored at the input of the converter). Moreover,
the size of the resulting capacitor is going to be bigger
although it is rated for a lower voltage. The main conse-
Fig. 12. One stage AC-DC active solution quence is that, in a real design, the capacitor has to be an

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ILED

Iline
DC
DC LOAD
C sto DC
VIine DC
Working PWM
as PFC filter

VCsto ILED * VIref

VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor *
X
VCsto ILED

Non-electrolytic storage capacitor * compensator

a) b)

Fig. 13. a) One-stage AC-DC active solution with PFC; b) Simplified block diagram of the control of a PFC when the
output current is controlled (instead of the output voltage)

electrolytic one and the lifetime of the converter is com- ering that the voltage demanded by the LED arrangement
promised. If non-electrolytic capacitors were used, the ca- is normally lower than the peak value of the input voltage,
pacitance that could be achieved at the output of the con- the buck converter may be valid. If PF correction is manda-
verter using reasonable space would lead to a considerable tory, the buck [35] (only with very low output voltages) or
low-frequency voltage ripple [34] . Considering the elec- the buck-boost topology operating in Discontinuous Con-
tric model of the LEDs, this would imply even a higher duction Mode (DCM) are a perfect option. Besides, if the
relative current ripple and, consequently, non admissible LED arrangement requires an input voltage higher than the
flickering in the emitted light. Of course, if the LEDs are peak value of the input voltage, the boost converter [36-38]
arranged in such a way that the required output voltage operating in Boundary Conduction Mode (BCM) may be
is similar to the peak value of the input voltage or even selected. As it was mentioned, some start-up problem may
higher, this problem is mitigated. Nevertheless, this is not appear with this topology due to high inrush currents. The
always possible as some customers’ requirements limit the Conduction Modes (CM) may be defined attending to the
output voltage of this kind of applications to 60 V due to current through the inductor of the converter (see Fig. 14)
hazardous voltage limit. [16]. If the inductor current does not reach zero, the con-
Apart from what has been explained, it should be taken verter is operating in Continuous CM (CCM). If the current
into account that the one stage topology is a cost and reaches zero and remains with that value for a while, the
volume saving solution while keeping precise regulation converter is operating in DCM. If the current rises again as
of the output current and other control advantages (short- soon as it reaches zero, the converter is operating in Bound-
circuit protection, dimming, etc.). Moreover, its efficiency ary CM (BCM).
may be high as only one energy conversion is carried out.
Finally, one stage topologies supplying several strings Two-stage switching topologies
connected in parallel can solve the problem mentioned in
Section 2 in two different ways: equalizers can be con- As can be seen, the main problem of the previous topol-
nected to each string or each string can be supplied by ogy was trying to achieve PF correction and current regu-
its own converter. With the first option, cost is not signifi- lation with just one converter. The main consequence was
cantly increased, but efficiency is going to decrease due to the mandatory use of electrolytic capacitor, compromis-
the poor efficiency of the equalizer. With the second op- ing reliability, or (if it is not used) having an excessive
tion, efficiency is not affected, but cost and size are signif- low-frequency current ripple (i.e.: flickering). This can be
icantly increased although each converter is not designed solved if a two stage topology is used as shown in Fig. 15.
for the nominal power, but for the LED string power. The first stage of this two-stage topology would be in
There are some topologies that are valid for one-stage charge of performing the PF correction. As this topology is
solutions. If PF correction is not mandatory, it is possible not directly connected to the LEDs, its output voltage can
to have the energy storage capacitor at the input. Consid- be as high as needed. Therefore, the energy can be stored

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ILf
ILED=I o

DC/DC converter

ILf ILf
ILf
ILf ILf ILf

Continuous Boundary Discontinuous

Conduction Mode Conduction Mode Conduction Mode
(CCM) (BCM) (DCM)

Fig. 14. Continuous, Boundary and Discontinuous Conduction Mode as a function of the inductor current of the output
filter

ILED
out electrolytic capacitors, so its lifetime is considerably
enlarged.
Iline
Csto The main disadvantages of this topology are the high
DC DC number of components and its size. This increases the cost
VIine DC DC and, as a consequence, they are not usually used for cost-
Working effective solutions, such as replacement LED-based light
as PFC
bulbs, in which cost and size are the key points.
VCsto ILED
It may seem that efficiency is another disadvantage:
VIine Iline
as two energy conversions are carried out, its efficiency
Electrolytic storage capacitor should be lower than the efficiency of one-stage topolo-
VCsto ILED gies. Nevertheless, in the two-stage topology, each con-
verter is optimized for just one task. As a consequence,
Non-electrolytic storage capacitor they can reach very high efficiency and, in fact, the overall
efficiency is usually higher than in the case of the one-stage
Fig. 15. Two-stage AC-DC active solution topology (which cannot be optimized and, consequently,
its efficiency is compromised).
at the output of this converter with non-electrolytic capac- If the LED arrangement includes several strings con-
itors. Moreover, any low-frequency ripple in this output nected in parallel, it is possible to use equalizers in each
voltage will not necessarily affect the LEDs because it can string with the corresponding efficiency decrease. Another
be cancelled by the second stage. Therefore, the amount of option is keeping the first stage common to all the LED
energy that is stored can be reduced, which means that the strings and having as many second stages as LED strings in
capacitance can be lower and, consequently, the size of the the arrangement. Cost and size are going to be increased,
capacitor will be smaller. but it should be taken into account that only the second
stages are duplicated, not the first one.
The second stage is in charge of regulating the current
As first stage, and considering that galvanic isolation is
driven by LEDs. That means that it also has to cancel any
not required in any of the stages, the boost converter is the
low-frequency ripple present at its input voltage as it has
most suitable option. The PF correction can be achieved in
been mentioned. Therefore, the output filter can be cal-
two possible ways:
culated for filtering only the switching frequency, which
means small-size inductors and capacitors. Besides, due to • Operating in BCM (see Fig. 14). The switching fre-
the value of the first stage output voltage, this second stage quency is then variable (which implies a little bit more
is usually implemented with step-down topologies. complex input EMI filter) but switching losses in the
As it can be seen, one of the main advantages of this output diode are considerably reduced and efficiency
topology is reliability. It can be easily implemented with- may reach very high values (around 97%).

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68% of the total energy is processed only once (like in the

one-stage solution). Hence, efficiency should be boosted.
Besides, the output capacitor is not the storage capacitor
and, consequently, electrolytic-free topologies can be im-
plemented.
Although it may seem attractive at first glance, it should
be taken into account that it has two important disadvan-
tages. The auxiliary converter has to be bidirectional, so
that energy can flow from Csto to the load or from the PFC
converter to Csto . This adds complexity to the topology.
Fig. 16. Energy balance of a PFC converter Besides, the control algorithm of the whole system is quite
complex as there are several variables to be controlled: in-
• Operating in CCM (see Fig. 14). The switching fre- put current, output current and storage capacitor voltage
quency is constant but a controller with a multiplier (i.e.: energy flux).
is required for the PF correction. Besides, the switch- In practice, the PFC converter can be any of the ones
ing losses in the diode are not reduced and alternative proposed for the one stage solution. For the auxiliary con-
methods are required if efficiency needs to be boosted verter, the most suitable option is a bidirectional boost con-
(e.g.: the use of Silicon Carbide Schottky diodes in- verter (operates as a buck converter when energy flows in
stead of Silicon diodes [39]). the opposite direction).

4.2 Topologies with galvanic isolation

The second stage, as has been said, is usually imple-
mented with step-down converters, such as the buck con- 4.2.1 Passive topologies
verter.
For obtaining galvanic isolation, it is possible to modify
the solution proposed in Fig. 11 by adding a transformer
Special two-stage switching topologies as shown in Fig. 18. The capacitor for limiting the current
can be eliminated because the turns ratio (n:1) of the trans-
Lately, an intermediate solution between the one and former can reduce the voltage applied to the LED arrange-
two stage topologies has been proposed [40, 41]. As can ment. To the disadvantages explained in 3.1.1, it should
be seen in Fig. 16, when the first converter achieves PF be added here that a low-frequency transformer is needed.
correction, the amount of energy obtained from the line Even for the lowest power, the topology is relatively bulky
(blue area) is equal to the amount of energy demanded by due to the low-frequency transformer.
the load (yellow area). Nevertheless, there is a mismatch
between the instantaneous power available at the input and
4.2.2 Active topologies
the instantaneous power demanded by the load. Therefore,
the exceeding energy (green area) needs to be stored in The active solutions, when galvanic isolation is re-
order to be used when there is a lack of it (red area). In quired, have the possibility of using converters in which the
the previous solutions, the energy is directly stored in the transformer is inside the aforementioned converter. There-
output capacitor of the PF correction converter. In this in- fore, high-frequency (hundreds of kHz) transformer can be
termediate solution (Fig. 17), the LED arrangement is di- used, saving size and cost. Taking this into account, us-
rectly fed by the PFC converter. Nevertheless, when there ing a non-isolated converter in combination with a low-
is an excess of energy in its output, this excess is stored frequency transformer is not considered as an option due
by an auxiliary converter in the storage capacitor. When to its inherent disadvantages. As in the previous Section,
there is a lack of energy, this auxiliary converter extracts one-stage and two stage solutions can be presented.
this energy from the storage capacitor and injects it into
the load. Hence, the output capacitor of the PFC converter
One-stage switching topologies
is no longer the storage capacitor and, consequently, it may
be small (in size and capacitance) [42]. Apart from other tasks, the converter used as single
As can be seen, this topology tries to keep the advan- stage has to provide galvanic isolation. That means the use
tages of both, the one-stage and the two-stage topology, of a transformer that implies additional advantages and dis-
while alleviating their drawbacks. The exceeding energy advantages to those presented in 4.1.2. If PF correction is
is the only one to be processed several times (once by the not mandatory, a one-stage topology similar to the one pre-
PFC and twice by the auxiliary converter). That means that sented in Fig. 12 can be used (with the storage capacitor

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ILED

Iline C sto
DC
DC
DC
VIine DC
Bidirectional
Working
as PFC

ILED VCsto

VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor
ILED VCsto

Non-electrolytic storage capacitor

Fig. 17. Special two-stage topology with bidirectional auxiliary converter

ILED
ILED VIine
VTR=Vline/n
n:1 Iline
VIine VTR
VTR DC/DC
C sto
VIine
ILED Working
as PFC

VCsto ILED
Fig. 18. AC-DC passive solution with galvanic isolation VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor
VCsto ILED
at the input of the converter). It would have the same ad-
vantages and disadvantages with the only difference of the
Non-electrolytic storage capacitor
galvanic isolation provided by the converter. Nevertheless,
achieving PF correction is a very common requirement and
Fig. 19. One-stage AC-DC active solution with galvanic
the most common topology is the one presented in Fig. 19,
isolation
in which the storage capacitor is at the output of the con-
verter.
First of all, it should be considered that if there is a big Another advantage is that it is possible to use a trans-
difference between the input and the output voltages, semi- former with several secondary windings, as mentioned in
conductors of a non-isolated topology (e.g.: buck, boost, 3.2.1. As in that case, several outputs can be obtained in or-
etc.) are going to withstand very high voltages and high der to supply several LED strings. Nevertheless, equalizing
peak currents. Therefore, the overall efficiency is going techniques are still mandatory due to the impossibility of
to be compromised due to their worse performance and independently regulate each output. It has be also already
characteristics (e.g.: RDSON, knee voltage, dynamic re- mentioned that using one galvanic-isolated converter for
sistance, etc.). Using isolated converters reduces the volt- supplying each LED strings implies too many transform-
age and current stress on semiconductors and, therefore, ers taking into account the cost and size of this kind of
increases the overall efficiency. Hence, the isolated topolo- magnetic components.
gies may be the most suitable option if there is a big differ- One of the main disadvantages apart from the cost and
ence between the input and the output voltage even when size of the transformers is that the reliability problem still
galvanic isolation is not required. exists: the output capacitor has to be an electrolytic one,

166 AUTOMATIKA 53(2012) 2, 156–172

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ILED

Iline
Csto
DC DC/DC
VIine DC
Working
as PFC

VCsto ILED

VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor
VCsto ILED

Non-electrolytic storage capacitor

a)

ILED

Iline
C sto
DC/DC DC
VIine DC
Working
as PFC

VCsto ILED

VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor
VCsto ILED

Non-electrolytic storage capacitor

b)

Fig. 20. Two-stage active solution with galvanic isolation in the a) second stage b) first stage

especially if the output voltage is relatively low. verter, the smaller the actual size of the storage capacitor.
The most common topology used when galvanic isola- Besides, the voltage demanded by the LED arrangements
tion is required is the flyback topology working as PFC. In is usually considerably smaller than the peak value of the
fact, any topology of the flyback family (isolated SEPIC, line voltage. Therefore, using an isolated second stage (see
Ćuk, etc.) [43-49] may be valid with identical results and Fig. 20a) allows us to maintain a high voltage in the stor-
only some differences in the input EMI filter. age capacitor of the PFC converter (intermediate DC bus)
while having a high efficiency in the second stage even
Two-stage switching topologies
with low output voltages (i.e.: big differences between its
input and output voltages).
The key issue in this topology is deciding where to Nevertheless, if the LED arrangement includes several
place the galvanic isolation. It should be taken into ac- LED strings in parallel and each one is going to be con-
count that the higher the output voltage of the PFC con- nected to its own second stage (while the first one is com-

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DC
DC

DC
DC
ILED

Iline VET
C sto
DC DC/DC DC
VIine DC DC
Working
as PFC

VCsto VET ILED

VIine Iline
Electrolytic storage capacitor
VCsto VET ILED

Non electrolytic storage capacitor

Fig. 21. Three-stage AC-DC active solution with galvanic isolation

mon to all the LED strings), it should be taken into ac- first and the second stages are common to all the strings,
count that placing the galvanic isolation in the first stage while there are as many third stages as strings in parallel.
(see Fig. 20b) may mean a considerable saving in cost and Therefore, the topology has only one transformer (there is
size, although current ripple and reliability may be com- only one second stage) and the cost is not significantly in-
promised. creased. It may be considered as a two-stage topology with
The most common topology for the first stage, if gal- equalizers, but it has two important differences with it:
vanic isolation is achieved by means of the second stage,
is the boost converter (as explained in 3.1.2) [50]. If gal-
vanic isolation is achieved in the first stage, flyback fam- • The equalizers have poor efficiency in comparison to
ily converters [45, 46] are the most suitable option. Com- the third stages proposed here. They are switching
mon isolated second stages are HB LLC resonant converter mode power supplies with very high efficiency.
[51-54], Asymmetrical HB (AHB) [55, 56], flyback fam-
ily [50, 57, 58], etc. Non-isolated topologies for the second • The second stage in this topology only provides the
stage are buck [59], TIBuck [60-65] (taking advantage of galvanic isolation and does not have to regulate the
the possibility of two isolated outputs in the first stage) or output current. Therefore, this second stage can be
any other non-isolated topology. unregulated and, consequently, being based on the
Electronic Transformer (ET) concept [66], which may
reach an efficiency as high as 97%-98%. It should be
Three-stage switching topologies
taken into account that the ET may be considered as a
When several LED strings are connected in parallel transformer that can operate with DC voltages. There-
and galvanic isolation is mandatory, the second stage can fore, although it is unregulated, it can apply a fixed
evolve into a three-stage topology as the one shown in gain (turns ratio in a real transformer) to its input volt-
Fig. 21. The idea is that each stage is responsible for just age. In the two-stage topology with several second
one task [54, 59]. In this way, the first stage would provide stages, these second stages have to provide the gal-
the PF correction, the second stage would provide the gal- vanic isolation and they also have to regulate the out-
vanic isolation and the third stage would regulate the out- put current. As they have to accomplish two different
put current. The main advantage of this topology is that the tasks, their optimization is worse.

168 AUTOMATIKA 53(2012) 2, 156–172

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5 CONCLUSION [7] T. Siew-Chong, "Level Driving Approach for Improving

Electrical-to-Optical Energy-Conversion Efficiency of Fast-
LED represents a very interesting alternative to the tra- Response Saturable Lighting Devices," Industrial Electron-
ditional lighting devices due to, among other reasons, their ics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 57, pp. 1342-1353, 2010.
high efficiency and reliability. Nevertheless, they need the
[8] L. Wai-Keung, K. H. Loo, T. Siew-Chong, Y. M. Lai, and
development of converters specially designed for taking
C. K. Tse, "Bilevel Current Driving Technique for LEDs,"
advantage of their characteristics. This implies the design Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 24, pp. 2920-
of converters with very high efficiency and without elec- 2932, 2009.
trolytic capacitor so that their lifetime is extended. Al-
[9] B. A. Thomas, "Edison revisited: Impact of DC distribution
though for DC-DC converters this is not a big problem, for
on the cost of LED lighting and distributed generation," pre-
AC-DC topologies (when PFC is mandatory) this means a sented at Applied Power Electronics Conference and Expo-
big design-effort. Besides, the control technique for regu- sition (APEC), 2010 Twenty-Fifth Annual IEEE.
lating the amount of light emitted by the LED may ben-
[10] P. S. Almeida, J. M. Jorge, C. R. B. S. Rodrigues, G. M.
efit from its fast response. Therefore, it is very important
Soares, D. P. Pinto, and H. A. C. Braga, "A novel method
to know all the possible topologies, their advantages and of current equalization in LED strings based on simple lin-
disadvantages, in order to choose the best option for each ear circuit," presented at Industrial Electronics (ISIE), 2011
situation: street lighting, flashlights, car lights, advertising IEEE International Symposium on.
signs, etc.
[11] J. Wang, J. Zhang, X. Wu, Y. Shi, and Z. Qian, "A novel
high efficiency and low-cost current balancing method
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT for multi-LED driver," presented at Energy Conversion
This work has been supported by Spanish Govern- Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 2011 IEEE, 2011.
ment under projects RUE-10-CSD2009-00046 FEDER [12] H. Yuequan and M. M. Jovanovic, "LED Driver With Self-
Funds, MICINN10-DPI2010-21110-C02-01 and student Adaptive Drive Voltage," Power Electronics, IEEE Trans-
grant FPI BES-2011-044114. actions on, vol. 23, pp. 3116-3125, 2008.
[13] C. Huang-Jen, L. Yu-Kang, C. Jun-Ting, C. Shih-Jen,
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[53] M. Arias, D. G. Lamar, A. Vázquez, J. Sebastián, D. Manuel Arias Pérez de Azpeitia was born in
Balocco, and A. Diallo, "Analysis of the Asymmetrical Oviedo, Spain, in 1980. He received the M. Sc.
half-bridge for Street LED-Lighting Applications," pre- degree in electrical engineering from the Univer-
sity of Oviedo, Gijón, Spain in 2005 and the Ph.
sented at Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, D. degree in the same university in 2010. Since
ECCE 2011, Phoenix (EEUU), 2011. February 2005, he has been a Researcher in the
[54] M. Arias, D. Lamar, F. Linera, D. Balocco, A. Diallo, and J. Deparment of Electrical and Electronic Engineer-
ing, University of Oviedo, developing electronic
Sebastian, "Design of a Soft-Switching Asymmetrical Half-
systems for UPSs and electronic switching power
Bridge Converter as second stage of a LED driver for Street- supplies. Since February 2007, he has also been
Lighting Application," Power Electronics, IEEE Transac- an Assistant Professor of electronics in the same
tions on, vol. PP, pp. 1-1, 2011. University. His research interests include DC-DC converters, AC-DC
converters and LED lighting.
[55] D. Gacio, J. M. Alonso, A. J. Calleja, J. Garcia, and
M. Rico-Secades, "A Universal-Input Single-Stage High-
Power-Factor Power Supply for HB-LEDs Based on In-
tegrated Buck-flyback Converter," Industrial Electronics, Aitor Vazquez was born in Oviedo, Spain, in
1984. He received the M.Sc. degree in telecom-
IEEE Transactions on, vol. 58, pp. 589-599, 2011.
munication engineering from the University of
[56] Y. Li and C. Chen, "A Novel Single-Stage High-Power- Oviedo in 2009. He became a member of Power
Factor AC-to-DC LED Driving Circuit with Leakage In- Supply System Group in 2010, where he is cur-
ductance Energy Recycling," Industrial Electronics, IEEE rently working toward the Ph.D. degree . His re-
search interests include multiple input and out-
Transactions on, vol. PP, pp. 1-1, 2011.
put DC/DC conversion, power-factor corrector
[57] ST, "AN3105 Application Note," ST, 2010. AC/DC converters and energy recovery systems.

AUTOMATIKA 53(2012) 2, 156–172 171

An Overview of the AC-DC and DC-DC Converters for LED Lighting Applications M. Arias, A. Vázquez, J. Sebastián

Javier Sebastián was born in Madrid, Spain, in AUTHORS’ ADDRESSES

1958. He received the M.Sc. degree from the Asst. Prof. Manuel Arias, Ph.D.
Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, in
1981 and the Ph.D. degree from the Universi-
Aitor Vasquez, M.Sc.
dad de Oviedo, Gijón, Spain, in 1985. He was Prof. Javier Sebastián, Ph.D
an Assistant Professor and an Associate Profes- Electronic Power Supply Systems Group,
sor at both the Polytechnic University of Madrid Electronic Technology Division,
and the Universidad de Oviedo. Since 1992, he University of Oviedo,
has been with the Universidad de Oviedo, where Edificio 3, Campus de Viesques s/n, 33204, Gijon, Spain
he is currently a Professor. His research inter-
email: {ariasmanuel, vazquezaitor.uo, sebas}@uniovi.es
ests are switching-mode power supplies, model-
ing of DC-to-DC converters, low-output-voltage DC-to-DC converters,
and high-power-factor rectifiers. Received: 2011-12-29
Accepted: 2012-04-04

172 AUTOMATIKA 53(2012) 2, 156–172