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In order to increase the low voltage of renewable energy systems to a relatively high bus voltage for the downstream DC-AC grid-connected inverter, a new DC-DC switched-capacitor converter with the potential of output voltage regulation is proposed. The operational principles, with regard to the specific switching conditions, are provided the relationships for the parameter design and efficiency calculation. The topology makes it possible to integrate the high voltage gain and excellent output regulation that open a huge area of applications and create the possibility of maximum power point tracking (MPPT), which is an important advantage of proposed structure. Moreover, the most important advantages of the proposed structure are continuous input current, variety of the DC voltage source values, and the cost of the converter in comparison with the conventional structures. A comparison with other similar structures is given to show the merits of the proposed topology. Finally, the experimental results are presented to clarify the theory and feasibility of the proposed converter. K E Y W O R D S DC-DC power conversion, high step-up voltage gain, switched capacitor (SC)

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An expected lifetime of converters is of great importance for optimal decision-making in the planning of modern Power Electronic (PE) systems. Hence, the lifetime management of power electronic systems has attracted a lot of attention in academia and industry. This paper is a guideline for managing the lifetime of power converters. Analyzing the different kinds of failures, failure modes and their corresponding mechanisms are investigated in the first section along with the failure data needed as input parameters of the assessment. In the second section, lifetime prediction in two aspects of component-level and system level is discussed and all the possible techniques to achieve them are investigated and compared. All the steps required to predict the lifetime in the component-level including electrothermal modeling, cycle counting, lifetime model, damage accumulation, parameter estimation, and lifetime distribution are described and then system level methods consisting of reliability block diagrams, fault-tree analysis, and Markov chains are examined and compared. The last section contains the roadmap of the lifetime extension including the reliable design and condition monitoring. INDEX TERMSReliability, Lifetime management, Lifetime analysis, Lifetime prediction, Lifetime extension, Empirical model, Physics of failure, failure mechanism FIGURE 1. Guideline of the reliability of power electronic systems.

In this paper, a new family of ultra-high step-up DC-DC converters based on a center-tapped coupled inductor (CI) is proposed. These single-switch converters employ different inductive and capacitive power transfer techniques by utilizing multi-winding CIs, intermediate capacitor links and simple switchedcapacitors to improve the transferred power rate, harvest magnetizing and leakage inductance energies, and enhance power density. Achieving high voltage gain in low duty cycle values enables the proposed converters to operate under wide output voltage ranges; meanwhile, distributing the output voltage on two or three output ports alleviates the voltage stress on output terminal components. Low input current ripple, simple pulse width modulation control, low switch voltage stress and operation without circulating current can be listed as other features. In this paper, the proposed family is introduced, theoretically analyzed and compared with other state-of-the-art researches. Finally, the accuracy of analyses are evaluated with some experimental tests of a 1.25 kW experimental prototype.INDEX TERMS DC-DC converter, high step-up power converter, center-tapped coupled inductor.