Principles of electronic ballasts for fluorescent lamps-an overview

In the lower power range, electronic ballasts represent an interesting application of power electronics. While the usable power semiconductors are relatively easy to understand, the diversity of circuit topologies, discussed in the literature, is considerably more difficult to evaluate. What further complicates the situation, is the fact that in addition to technical requirements (crest factor, power factor, EMC), cost plays the major role in this application. In this paper we present a classification for known circuit topologies and add some new ones. The classification allows one to compare different circuit topologies with respect to component count and technical performance.