Experimental Characterization and Modeling of

High-Frequency Transformers for SMPS

I.A. Maio∗ , F.C. Canavero∗ , R. Franchino† , D. Leonard† , P. Savi∗
∗
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, e-mail:maio@polito.it
†
Schneider Electric, Grenoble, France

Abstract 2 Experimental Characterization

A complete characterization and modeling procedure for
high-frequency transformers is proposed. The procedure is
based on one-port measurements and on the approximation
of the entries of the admittance matrix of the transformer by
real rational functions. Parasitics effects between the wind-
ings and between the windings and the reference plane are
included by means of a 4-port framework. The use of a
transformer model for the simulation of a dc-dc converter is
demonstrated.
The measurement of the transformer responses is based on
the test fixture shown in Fig. 1. The device under test is
a sample of the two-windings high-frequency transformer
Kaschke SNK-12-3. The test fixture is composed of a copper
board – that mimics the reference plane where the device is
mounted in actual applications – and of four SMA connec-
tors defining four electromagnetic ports between each trans-
former terminal and the copper plane. The four-port char-
acterization allows to include all the parasitics between the
windings and between the windings and the reference plane.

1 Introduction
The noise properties of Switching Mode Power Suppliers
(SMPSs) using high-frequency transformers are strongly in-
fluenced by the parasitic parameters of the transformers. The
modeling of high-frequency transformers is, therefore, a pri-
mary issue in the simulation of SMPSs for EMC predictions.
The required models should be able to reproduce the trans-
former behavior from dc up to the upper limit of conducted
emission range (30 MHz) or, possibly, up to higher frequen-
cies. Besides, in order to account for the transformer effects
on the common mode noise, the models should include both
the coupling between the transformer windings and the cou-
pling to the circuit reference. Modeling approaches based
on the physics of the transformer are hardly effective for this
modeling problem, that is best addressed via identification
methods applied to measured responses. As an example, this
approach is exploited in [1] and [2], that tackle the modeling
of high-voltage and high-power transformers, respectively,
via measurements and model identification.
In this paper, the modeling of a high-frequency trans-
former is addressed by means of a high-frequency measure-
ment technique and by fitting the measured responses with
real rational functions. The measurement bandwidth extends
up to 1 GHz and the fitting of the responses, i.e., the estima-
tion of the transformer model, is carried out by the vector Figure 1: Test fixture for the measurement technique pro-
fitting algorithm [2, 4]. The common mode effects are in- posed in this paper. Top panel: device; bottom panel: mea-
cluded by treating the transformer as a four-port element. In surement ports.
principle, this approach can yield models suitable for tran-
sient simulations from dc up to the highest frequency of the In order to include both the functional and the out-of-band
measured responses. behavior of the transformer, the measurement range must ex-
 0
10
!2
10
!4
10 !2 !1
10 10 10
!2
!4 !2 !1
10 10 10
Figure 2: Measured magnitude in Ω−1 (top panel) and phase (bottom panel) of the short circuit admittance matrix elements
vs. frequency in MHz for the device under test. Solid lines: Y11 , Y12 , Y22 ; dashed lines: Y33 , Y34 , Y44 ; dotted lines:
Y13 , Y14 , Y24 .
tend from some kHz to 30MHz (upper limit of the conducted
EMI range) or possibly to more than 30MHz, if radiated
emission issues are involved. In this work, the device un-
der test is characterized in the band 1kHz–1GHz and both
an impedance analyzer and a network analyzer are exploited.
The impedance analyzer measurements are extended up to
2.5MHz, whereas the network analyzer measurements starts
at 1MHz.
The measurement procedure is simplified as much as pos-
sible by collecting all data needed via one-port measurements
only. Any complete characterization of a 4-port element re-
quires the measurement of 16 responses. In our procedure,
four independent one-port responses are obtained for each
port by using four different load conditions for the remain-
ing three ports. If the remaining three ports for the one-
port measurement at port m are named α, β, γ 6= m, then
their load conditions are defined by: α, β, γ shorted; α open
β, γ shorted; β open α, γ shorted; γ open α, β shorted. Of
course, single-port measurements do not allow to detect the
signs of the transmission responses, that, however, in the case
of the transformer, can be obtained from the knowledge of
the winding orientation. Besides, responses with shorted and
open ports improve the accuracy of the derived models in de-
0 1 2
10 10
0 1 2
10 10
scribing the device behavior for actual load conditions (e.g.,
see [2] and Sec. 4).
In order to deal with an homogeneous set of responses,
both the one-port impedances measured by the impedance
analyzer and the reflection responses measured by the net-
work analyzer are converted into admittance functions. The
final result of the characterization phase, therefore, is a ma-
n
trix of single port admittances Ȳmm defined as:
m
• Ȳmm admittance at port m with all other ports shorted
n
• Ȳmm , n 6= m admittance at port m with port n open and
all other ports shorted
3 Modeling
n
In this Section the Ȳmm functions are exploited to develop a
real rational model of the transformer. In order to keep con-
trol over the passivity of the developed model it is expedient
to apply the model identification procedure to a standard net-
work characteristic matrix. The matrix used in this work is
the short circuit admittance matrix and the first step of the
modeling process amounts to computing the Y matrix from
 n
the Ȳmm functions. The elements of Y are computed as: realization. We carry out the fitting of the admittance data by
 means of the IDEM (Identification of linear Electric Mod-
 Ȳmmn
for n = m els [3]) modeling tool, that is based on the vector fitting
Ymn = q (1) method and features an advanced utility to enforce the pas-
 ± (Ȳmm m − Ȳ n )Ȳ n for n 6= m
mm nn sivity of estimated models. Details on the modeling process
can be found in [4].
In the above relation, off-diagonal terms have uncertain sign,
because the use of one-port measurement does not yield in- Admittance matrix entries, magnitude (dB)
!20
formation of the sign of the transmission responses. As men-
tioned, for the device under test, the correct signs are decided
by the orientation of the windings. !40

Since the device under modeling is reciprocal, Y is ex-

pected to be symmetric and the ten measured admittances !60
n
Ȳmm , m = 1, . . . , 4, n = m, . . . , 4 are sufficient to compute
n
the elements of Y. On the other hand, the use of all Ȳmm !80 4
10
5
10 10
6
10
7 8
10
functions allows to check the symmetry of the estimated Y
Admittance matrix entries, phase (degrees)
matrix, thereby verifying the accuracy of the overall process. 200
The ten elements of the admittance matrix estimated for the
100
device under modeling are shown in Fig. 2.
Up to 2MHz, the curves of Fig. 2 are grouped in three 0
sets, so that the estimated admittance matrix has the follow-
ing structure !100

  !200 4
+YA −YA −YM +YM 10
5
10 10
6
10
7 8
10
 −YA +YA +YM −YM  Frequency [Hz]
Y≈  −YM +YM +YB −YB 
 (2)
Figure 4: Magnitude (top panel, dB/Ω−1 ) and Phase (bot-
+YM −YM −YB +YB tom panel, degree) vs. frequency for the Y11 , Y12 , Y22 ad-
mittance functions. Solid lines: admittance data estimated
where YA = Y11 , YB = Y44 and YM = Y14 . This is the from measurement; dashed lines: responses of the full 4-port
admittance matrix of a two-port element, whose port A is de- model estimated by IDEM (fitting up to 30MHz and by 30
fined by the terminal no. 2 and no. 1 of the device under test poles)
and whose port B is defined by terminals no. 3 and no. 4, ac-
cording to the schematic of Fig. 3. The measurements carried Different models can be used to satisfy different accuracy
out, therefore, prove that the device under test behaves as a and modeling domain specifications with the simplest pos-
pure 2-port element up to 2MHz and that currents coupled to sible models. Two example models are shown here. The
the reference copper plane do become significant above that first one is a full four-port model obtained by fitting the data
frequency only. of Fig. 2 up to 30MHz and by using a common pole set
with 30 poles. The accuracy of the fitting can be appre-
ciated from Fig. 4, where the fitted data and the model re-
sponses are shown for the three admittance matrix elements
Y11 , Y12 , Y22 . The maximum error of the model in the band-
width 1kHz to 30MHz is on the order of 4% and affects the
Y11 function.
The second model proposed is a two-port model valid up
to 2MHz, i.e., in the bandwidth where the coupling of the
transformer to the ground plane is negligible. This model is
obtained by fitting function YA , YB and YM up to 2MHz by a
common pole set with order 12. The comparison of the fitted
data and the model response is shown in Fig. 5. It is worth to
notice that, even if the fitting is limited to 2MHz, the obtained
Figure 3: Labels and reference directions used for the termi- model roughly follows the estimation data up to 10MHz, as it
nals of the device under test. catches the dominant poles controlling the device dynamics.
The maximum error of this model up to 2MHz is less than
Different real rational models are be obtained by fitting 1% and pertains to function Y11 .
the admittance matrix element of Fig. 2 over different band- Augmented models can be also defined. These models are
widths and by using a different number of poles. Each model defined by a suitable equivalent circuit of the coupled in-
is defined by a common pole set and is implemented for tran- ductors. The parameters of the circuit are estimated by fit-
sient simulations as an equivalent circuit or as a state space ting the low-frequency part of the measured responses. Then
an augmentation admittance matrix is defined by the differ-
ence Yaug = Y − Yec , where Yec is the admittance matrix
of the equivalent circuit. This augmentation matrix collects
all the parasitic effects not included in the equivalent circuit
and is modeled by real rational functions as described above.
The advantage of this approach is that the augmented model
maintains part of the information of the physical behavior of
the modeled device and help the interpretation of model re-
sponses.

Admittance matrix entries, magnitude (dB) Figure 6: Block diagram of a Fly-back dc-dc converter using
20 the high-frequency transformer modeled in this paper. The
0 converter uses a MOSFET switching device and a snubber
!20 circuit for noise suppression (the 2-terminal element with la-
!40 bel S).
!60
!80 4 5 6 7 8
are shown in Fig. 7. The open circuit impedance of Fig. 7
10 10 10 10 10 has a parallel resonance at 400kHz, probably due to the res-
Admittance matrix entries, phase (degrees) onance of the primary winding inductance and capacitance.
200
The short circuit impedance, instead, exhibits a lower Q par-
100 allel resonance close to 4MHz, probably due to the resonance
of the primary winding capacitance and of the transformer
0
leakage inductance. The two resonances of the impedances
!100 of port A are the main responsible for the noise behavior of
!200 4
the converter. During the operation of the circuit, the trans-
5 6 7 8
10 10 10 10 10 former loads the switching MOSFET with one of the two
Frequency [Hz]
impedance curves and relaxation oscillation with frequency
Figure 5: Magnitude (top panel, dB/Ω−1 ) and Phase (bot- close to 400kHz and 4MHz may occur.
tom panel, degree) vs. frequency for the YA = Y11 , YB =
Y14 , YM = Y44 admittance functions. Solid lines: admit- 5
tance data estimated from measurement; dashed lines: re- 10
sponses of the equivalent 2-port model estimated by IDEM
(fitting up to 2MHz and order 12)

!2 !1 0 1
10 10 10 10
4 Model validation and application
The example device of Fig. 1 is designed for SMPS circuits 2
applications. In this Sections, one of the models developed
for the example device is applied to the simulation of a fly- 0
back dc-dc converter. The aim of the simulation is to repro-
duce and explain the transient waveforms of the converter, !2
that are responsible for its noise emissions. The block dia-
!2 !1 0 1
gram of the converter circuit is shown in Fig. 6, where the 10 10 10 10
4-terminal element indicates the modeled transformer. Figure 7: Magnitude (top panel, Ω) and phase (bottom
Since the waveforms measured in the example converter panel, radians) of the impedance of port A. Solid line: mea-
show significant harmonic components up to 1MHz, the sured impedance with port B open; dashed line: measured
2MHz 2-port model of Sec. 3 is used to simulate the con- impedance with port shorted; dotted lines: impedances pre-
verter operation. In this converter, the load on the secondary dicted by the SPICE script of the 2-MHz model of Sec. 3
transformer winding (port B) behaves either as an open cir-
cuit or as a short circuit for the high frequency noise, accord- The comparison of Fig. 7 includes the impedance re-
ing to the diode conduction state. In order to get insight in sponses predicted by the 2MHz model of Sec. 3, providing
the transformer behavior, therefore, it is useful to observe the the most appropriate validation in order to use the 2MHz
impedances of the transformer at port A, when port B is open model for the simulation of the converter circuit. The model
or shorted. These impedances are computed from both the responses are computed by means of SPICE 3f5 by using
developed model and directly from the measured data and the model subcircuit produced by IDEM. The comparison of
Fig. 7 shows that the model is very accurate in reproducing
the magnitude and phase of the measured impedance func-
tion. This accuracy holds for the real part of the impedance
as well, that may be a critical element of the modeling pro-
cess. The real part, in fact, is much smaller than the imagi-
nary one, yet it is responsible for losses and for the Q factor
of the resonances. Figure 7 shows also that the approxima-
tion of the 4MHz resonance is rough and may not be adequate
for the modeling of the converter if harmonic components in
the 4MHz range were present in the waveforms. Nonethe-
less, the modeling bandwidth of this model is 2MHz and the
residual accuracy at 4MHz is a remarkable byproduct of the
consistency of the modeling process.
250
200
contrast, the resonance of ZA with port B shorted is not ob-
served, because, it is effectively damped by the snubber cir-
cuit. All these effects are correctly predicted by the SPICE
script based on the transformer model. Finally, it is worth to
remark that the run time of the SPICE script for 1000µs of
transient analysis is on the order of 3s on a 2GHz personal
computer.
5 Conclusions
A characterization and modeling procedure for high-
frequency transformers is proposed. The procedure is sim-
ple and accurate and accounts for both differential-mode and
common-mode effects by means of a 4-port analysis. It can
be used up to the range of radiated emissions and it yields ef-
fective real rational models ready to be used in the simulation
of SMPS circuits.

150 References
100 [1] S.-K. Chung, “Transient characterisctis of high-voltage fly-
back trasformer operating in discountinous conduction mode”,
50 IEE Proc.-Electr. Power Appl. Vol. 151, No. 5, pp. 628-634,
September 2004.
0 [2] B. Gustavsen, “Wide band modeling of power trasformer”,
IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 414-422, Jan-
!50 uary 2004.
[3] see the IDEM Section on www.emc.polito.it
230 235 240 245 250 255 260 265 [4] F.G. Canavero, S. Grivet-Talocia, I.A. Maio, I.S. Stievano,
Figure 8: Voltage (V) at port A of the transformer of the fly- “Linear and Nonlinear Macromodels for System-Level Signal
back converter of Fig. 6 vs. time (µs). Solid line: SPICE Integrity and EMC Assessment”, IEICE Trans. on Communi-
simulation based on the 2MHz transformer model; Dotted cations - Special Issue on EMC, Vol. E88-B, No. 8, August
2005.
line: measurement.

The subcircuit of the 2MHz model of Sec. 3 is exploited to

simulate the operation of the converter of Fig. 6. The com-
plete SPICE script for the converter includes a behavioral
model of the MOSFET switch, an RC snubber with series
diode and no layout parasitics. The switching events of the
MOSFET are tuned to match the waveforms measured on the
actual converter. The waveform computed by means of the
SPICE script for the voltage across port A of the transformer
and the actual measured waveforms are in Fig. 8. The pre-
diction of the simulation is in good agreement with actual
voltage waveform.
In Fig. 8, the rectangular pulses correspond to the on time
intervals of the MOSFET switch, whereas the rest of the
waveform correspond to the off time intervals. In the off time
interval there is a flat part of the response, where the diode of
port B is conducing and the current of the primary winding
is transferred to the output capacitor, and a relaxation oscilla-
tion part. The relaxation oscillation occurs when the voltage
of the secondary winding becomes smaller than the capaci-
tor voltage and the diode turns to off state. In this condition,
the relaxation oscillation that are observed are caused by the
resonance of the ZA impedance with port B open (Fig. 7). In