A constraint-driven review on high density power conversion: Frequency, devices, and system-level limits

In modern power electronic systems, size and weight play a crucial role in various applications related to satellite, aviation, and electric vehicles. This has leads to the extensive research and development of high-power density power converters. To develop high-density converters, increasing the switching frequency and using wide-bandgap (WBG) devices in the design are the few steps to achieve the objective of reduction of size and weight. In this paper, a review of high-power density converters has been presented while focusing on the frequency and other design constraints. Although, by increasing the frequency, the power density factor improves, however, it brings new challenges in the design of the converter. These challenges include losses in the magnetic elements, increased effect of the parasitic parameters, electromagnetic interference, and thermal limitations. The role of WBG devices in the design of high-power density has also been explored in this paper. This paper also discusses the different converter topologies, including resonant topologies, interleaving, multilevel designs, and parasitic-aware circuit models. The review also identifies open research gaps across converter topologies and outlines directions likely to shape future high-density designs which includes packaging-level integration, ultra-wide-bandgap devices, and more consistent power density benchmarking.