Advanced Energy Industries, Inc.

John M Dorrenbacher

Robert M Porter, Jr

Faleh Alskran

Gideon Van Zyl

Douglas S Schatz

This disclosure describes a non-dissipative snubber circuit configured to boost a voltage applied to a load after the load's impedance rises rapidly. The voltage boost can thereby cause more rapid current ramping after a decrease in power delivery to the load which results from the load impedance rise. In particular, the snubber can comprise a combination of a capacitive element, two inductive elements, and three switches, where a duty cycle of two of the three switches controls the voltage boost. The snubber can be arranged between a DC power supply and a switching circuit configured to generate a pulsed waveform for provision to the load.

Simplified voltage-boosting snubber network

An apparatus utilizing additive interleaved switchmode (PWM) power conversion stages, having minimal or no output filter, to achieve high bandwidth or even ideally instantaneous power conversion. The additive process may involve voltage stacking of isolated PWM converters, which are interleaved in time, or may involve a single input power supply and inductively combining output currents of PWM power converters interleaved in time, with either additive circuit having minimal or no output filtering. This circuit may overcome limitations for the frequency of feedback control loops once thought to be physical limitations, such as, fundamental switching frequency, output filter delay and the Nyquist criteria.

Additive synthesis of interleaved switch mode power stages for minimal delay in set point tracking

A system, method, and apparatus for stabilizing interactions between an electrical generator and a nonlinear load are described. One illustrative embodiment includes an impedance element that is coupled to an output of the generator and a power source coupled to the impedance element. The power source applies power to, or across, the impedance element so as to reduce energy loss that would ordinarily occur due to energy dissipation by way of the impedance element. In many variations, the power source operates within a defined bandwidth so that a stabilizing effect is achieved outside of this bandwidth.

Efficient active source impedance modification of a power amplifier

An induction heating systems using a plurality of zones in a coil provides selective heating control for better uniformity especially for semiconductor and other thin film processing applications. By arranging the zones to have different resonance frequencies, the power supply may control the various zones by altering its frequency output. The power supply may also act to control the differential heating by switching among zones in conjunction with the frequency control, by sweeping through a variety of frequencies, by simultaneously providing power over different frequencies, by altering the residence time at each frequency, or by outputting different powers to each frequency or the like. Each zone may thus be tuned as appropriate to achieve the desired induction heating characteristic.

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Fort Collins, CO, United States of America

John M Dorrenbacher