Switch mode power supplies (SMPS) are well established in our modern world. Their main advantages are the realization of high efficiency and energy saving potential. Another benefit and design objective is a high power density to reach lightweight systems of small size. This thesis focuses on the benefits and the challenges of three stage DC-DC converters in SMPS applications. They are compared to state-of-the-art two stage DC-DC converters for high power and low output voltages. Possibilities for improvement of technical and miscellaneous parameters should be shown. The obtained information refers to power supply systems with maximum input power of 3680 W. This is the maximum power of a 230 V single phase supply with a 16 A fuse. The main applications are server and telecommunication AC-DC power supplies. Due to the complexity of SMPSs all investigations in this work have a mainly experimental background. Theoretical descriptions and calculations would require large simplifications of the real system. Thus, gained results would become inaccurate. Simulations and calculations are used during the practical implementation. Six SMPS demonstrators were developed during this dissertation work. All these systems were designed with the same specification i.e. for 12 V output voltage and 800 W output power. As a comparison an 800 W two stage power supply from Infineon Technologies AG was used. Three stage solutions can overcome the trade-offs in two stage power supplies. The optimization problem in a two stage SMPS is to find a compromise between the bulk capacitor size (cost) and the design of the DC-DC converter regarding the input voltage range. Three stage power supplies use an extra stage to decouple the output power regulation from the main stage. The main stage operates like a DC transformer. This stage can be optimized for operation at a 100 % duty cycle. Furthermore this is a good basis for zero voltage switching (ZVS) or resonant switching respectively. The extra stage can be implemented as a simple highly efficient buck converter which can easily cope with the wide input voltage range. There are two ways to arrange the buck stage. One possibility is on the primary side of the transformer in a pre regulated concept. Here the buck converter supplies the main stage with a constant voltage. Another possibility is an arrangement on the secondary side of the main stage in a post regulated concept. The DC transformer stage transfers the bulk voltage with all variations to the secondary side. The following buck stage has to maintain a constant output voltage. The two stage demonstrator is a voltage fed, hard switching half bridge with power factor correction (PFC) stage. The following pre regulated three stage powers supplies were investigated: current fed push pull converter, current fed full bridge converter and a current fed parallel resonant converter. The research of post regulated three stage SMPSs concentrates on: hard switching half bridge, serial resonant converter and an LLC converter. All three stages operate with a PFC stage. The main results of this dissertation are summarised below. The following characteristics apply to pre regulated switch mode power supplies: The main primary side MOSFETs in the current fed push pull converter and in the current fed full bridge converter are stressed with high voltages. However, the secondary side rectifier MOSFETs in all current fed systems operate with low voltage stress. The current fed parallel resonant converter is a modification of the current fed full bridge converter to achieve low switching losses in resonant mode operation. The stress on the active components is analogue to the full bridge converter. A drawback of this solution is the load dependent resonant and transfer behaviour. The implementation of synchronous rectification control in these current fed systems needs some effort. Self driven circuits were not sufficient. A topology with a current fed main stage is not adequate for the generation of high currents and low output voltages. The main reason for this is the high stress on the active components due to the leakage inductance in the system. Post regulated power supplies are characterised by the following facts: The investigation on the hard switching half bridge revealed load dependent transfer behaviour. Therefore this converter is unsuitable for a DC transformer application. Furthermore a limitation choke for the current rise and clamping diodes was necessary to achieve ZVS and low voltage stress on the secondary side rectifiers. Also, due to the occurring voltage drop the limitation choke reduces the converter output power. The serial resonant converter is suitable as a DC transformer in high output power applications. The load current is used to charge the output capacitances of the MOSFETs to achieve ZVS condition. The ZVS condition is lost at light load operation, influenced by the switching frequency, interlock time and the angle of switching. If the ZVS condition is lost, the primary MOSFETs in the resonant converter operate in hard switching mode with high switching losses. A modified serial resonant topology, the LLC converter, solves the problem of losing ZVS at light load operation. ZVS condition is supported by the transformer magnetising current which is independent of the load current. ZVS condition can be achieved over a wide operation range to limit losses in the primary side MOSFETs. The LLC converter is a real load independent DC transformer. This is a major result of this research. The main advantage of a three stage solution compared to a two stage power supply is the reduction of the bulk capacitance. The voltage variation at the bulk capacitor during a brownout is regulated with a simple buck converter. The reduced bulk capacitance leads to cost savings and a gain in power density. The galvanic isolation and the output regulation is separated in a three stage concept, therefore the design of the stages is quite simple. Every stage can operate independently, therefore the system gains degrees of freedom. More freedom in design leads to a better adjustment between three stage SMPS and application. If required, a synchronisation between the stages can be implemented. The load current of the bulk capacitor can be reduced by synchronising the PFC stage and the following stage in high power system. Normally, the design of the different stages in a three stage SMPS is quite simple, because of the spreading of the output power regulation and the galvanic isolation to different stages. This separation could be used in a three stage LLC converter to reach a gain in efficiency compared to a two stage setup. The possibility for discrete optimisation of the stages leads to an optimised SMPS system. The main drawback of a three stage solution is the higher component count, compared to a two stage supply. However, higher component count and system costs do not correlate directly. A practical comparison between the investigated power supplies showed a similar cost level. The major goal of the thesis, to achieve a gain in efficiency with three stage SMPSs compared to a two stage solution, was not reached completely. The main reason is the high switching frequency in the different stages. High switching frequency leads to high switching losses in the switches. At full load operation the efficiency of the three stage LLC converter was less than in the two stage SMPS. However, at light load the situation reversed. The three stage LLC converter reached higher efficiency than the two stage SMPS. Due to the reduction of bulk capacitor size, an improvement of power density was reached with three stage solutions, compared to two stage SMPSs. This investigation highlights the qualitative properties of the different topologies. All quantitative statements in this work refer to current state-of-the-art semiconductors and passive components. Due to the permanent development in these fields all conclusions are only indicative. In this research currently common switching frequencies have been proven. Therefore, the efficiency values show not the maximum values for these topologies. A reduction of the switching frequency would lead to a gain in total efficiency. By using state-of-the-art semiconductors and passive components, switching frequencies of about 70 kHz to 130 kHz are optimal for achieving high efficiency. For high output power interleaved topologies in combination with low switching frequencies (70 kHz to 130 kHz) are reasonable. Cancellation effects caused by control can be used to reduce passive components stress in these topologies. It became clear that the LLC converter with secondary side buck converter is the best three stage solution. Due to the excellent properties in a three stage solution the combination of an LLC converter with a primary side buck stage is reasonable, too. This setup would facilitate the design of the buck regulator stage. This configuration could be investigated in ongoing research. An efficiency estimation is already given in this thesis.weiterlesen