Single-Stage Switched-Capacitor Module (S3CM) Topology for Cascaded Multilevel Inverter

A two-stage switched-capacitor based multilevel inverter possesses a drawback such that switches in the second stage (i.e., H-bridge) endure higher voltage stress. To resohe this problem, this letter proposes a single-stage switched-capacitor module ((SCM)-C-3) topology for cascaded multilevel inverter, which ensures the peak inverse voltage across all the switches within the dc source voltage. A total of nine voltage levels can be generated with only one dc source and two incorporated capacitors. Hence, the number of isolated dc sources is significantly reduced compared to a cascaded H-bridge. In addition, voltage boosting gain of two is achieved. A comparative analysis of the recent topology reveals that the proposed (SCM)-C-3 topology achieves switch count reduction. The operation of the proposed topology is validated through circuit analysis followed by simulation and experimental results of a single-module (9-level) prototype.