A study of boundary operated interleaved boost converters with phase shedding

The multi-phase or interleaved boost converter is widely employed for high power and low ripple requirement applications. Traditionally, each phase of the interleaved converter uses identical inductance to ensure power delivery is equally shared among the phases. The converter works in continuous mode which relatively increases the size of the inductor when compared to discontinuous conduction mode and critical conduction mode operations. However, the ripple current is significantly smaller when compared to DCM and CrCM. This paper attempts to investigate the merits and demerits of operating an interleaved boost converter in CrCM with non-identical inductances. The paper provides the design guidelines, simulation results and the phase shedding control to ensure CrCM operation at different power levels. The paper critically evaluates the proposed interleaved technique with the traditional interleaved converter and a single-phase converter with respect to several performance parameters.