Power Factor Correction Reference Design

The design helps control Vienna rectifiers in high-power systems. It includes tools for control, monitoring, and faster development.

The Vienna rectifier power topology is commonly used in high-power, three-phase power factor correction applications, including appliances, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and telecom rectifiers. Designing control for the rectifier can be complex. TIDA-010257, a reference design from Texas Instruments (TI) demonstrates a method to control the power stage using the C2000 microcontroller (MCU). It also provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for monitoring and controlling the Vienna rectifier. The available hardware and software streamline the design process, helping reduce time to market. The design is suitable for various high-power applications, including air conditioner outdoor units, heat pumps, EV charging infrastructure, telecom rectifiers, and factory automation and control systems.

Three-phase power is widely used in industrial applications where equipment operates at high power levels. Many of these applications, such as commercial air conditioners and EV chargers, use DC loads. To improve power quality on the grid and reduce harmonic currents drawn by these loads, power factor correction is required.

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Among the various active three-phase power factor correction topologies, the Vienna rectifier is a popular choice. It operates in continuous conduction mode (CCM), uses three-level switching, and places less voltage stress on power devices. Traditionally, Vienna rectifiers have used hysteresis-based control, but recent developments have shown that sine-triangle PWM is also a viable method. However, designing this control can be challenging. 

The TMS320F280013x is part of the C2000 real-time microcontroller family, designed for high efficiency in power electronics applications with ultra-low latency. It includes up to 256KB of flash memory and up to 36KB of on-chip SRAM for additional storage. It also integrates high-performance analog components that are tightly coupled with the processing and PWM units, enabling fast and accurate signal processing for control tasks. 

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Here’s a rewritten version of the section as a cleaner and more concise explanation, divided into distinct parts for clarity:

The UCC53x0 series includes single-channel isolated gate drivers designed for driving MOSFETs, IGBTs, SiC MOSFETs, and GaN FETs. It is well-suited for motor drives and industrial power supplies. Compared to optocouplers, they offer lower skew, faster response, higher temperature operation, and improved CMTI. The AMC1350 is a high-accuracy isolated amplifier designed to separate low-voltage circuits from high-voltage environments. It is suitable for voltage sensing in DC/DC converters, frequency inverters, and motor or servo-drive applications.

The TMCS1123 is a high-accuracy, galvanically isolated Hall-effect current sensor that delivers a linear output voltage proportional to the input current. With precision signal conditioning and built-in drift compensation, it achieves less than 1.4% max sensitivity error over temperature and lifetime without calibration, or under 1% with a one-time calibration. 

TI has tested this reference design. It comes with a bill of materials (BOM), schematics, assembly drawing, printed circuit board (PCB) layout, and more. The company’s website has additional data about the reference design. To read more about this reference design, click here.