A 96.3%-Efficiency Wide-Voltage-Range Three-Level Boost Converter with Loop-Free Self-Balancing and Dead-Zone PWM Control for Backlight LED Drivers

This paper proposes a high-efficiency three-level boost converter that ensures reliable operation in wide input and output voltage ranges for light-emitting diode (LED) drivers. The proposed converter adopts robust auto calibration using half of the output voltage ( V OUT ) for flying capacitor voltage ( V CF ) self-balancing without requiring additional bulky feedback loops. In addition, the proposed dead-zone PWM control (DZPC) overcomes the limitations of irregular switching and output ripples near the duty 0.5 boundary by alternating between mode1 (D < 0.5) and mode2 (D > 0.5) at every cycle. The prototype converter was fabricated in a 180-nm BCD process occupying a silicon area of 4.72 mm2 while adopting a flying capacitor of 4.7 μF and an inductor of 10 μH. The peak efficiency was measured up to 96.3% at V IN = 24 V, V OUT = 30 V, and I LOAD = 100 mA. The proposed loop-free self-balancing verified the reliable three-level conversion regardless of duty by maintaining V CF at 0.5 V OUT , while DZPC also ensures efficient and seamless operation around the duty of 0.5.