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Introduction to Power
Electronics
EE405 – Power Electronics
Spring 2019

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 What is Power Electronics?
• Defined as the application of solid state electronics for the control
and conversion of electric power
• Power electronics combines:
• Control: steady state and dynamic characteristics of closed loop
• Power: static and rotating power equipment for generation, transmission and
distribution of electrical energy
• Electronics: solid state devices and circuits for signal processing to obtain
desired control objectives
• Primarily used for power conversions and for control of electrical
motor drives

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Relationship of Power Electronics
Electronics (Devices / Power Equipment (Static
Control (Analog / Digital)
Circuits) / Rotating)

Figure 1: Block diagram of a typical power electronic system

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• Power electronics is used for processing energy
• Convert electrical energy from the form supplied by a source to the form
required by the load
• Example: power supplies use AC voltage from main and converts in to 5V DC
which is required for the operation of logic chips
• High efficiency is essential in any power processing application
• Difference between the energy into the system and energy out is usually
converted to heat, which needs to be removed
• Power circuits are designed to operate as efficiently as possible

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Types of Power Circuits:
• Diode rectifier: AC input voltage is converted into a fixed DC voltage
• AC – DC Converter (Controlled rectifier): AC input voltage converted into
varying DC voltage
• AC – AC Converters (AC voltage controllers): AC input voltage converted to
variable AC output voltage
• DC – DC Converters (DC Choppers): DC input voltage converted into DC
output voltage, having larger or smaller magnitude
• DC – AC Converters (Inverters): Transforms DC input voltage into AC
output voltage of controllable magnitude

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Power Semiconductor Devices:
1) Power diodes
• General purpose
• High speed (fast recovery)
• Schottky
2) Transistors
• Power bipolar junction transistors (BJTs)
• Power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs)
• Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)
3) Thyristors
• Silicon controlled Rectifier (SCR)