This paper presents a three-phase DC-AC converter with an optimized number of levels per number of switches. Each phase of the proposed converter includes four controlled power switches and it is able to generate five levels. The most significant characteristics of the proposed converter are: (i) reduced number of semiconductor devices, while keeping a high number of levels at the output side of each phase, (ii) no need to control DC-link capacitor voltage as in NPC and flying capacitor topologies, and (iii) reduced semiconductor losses. The principle of operation, modulation technique, and modeling of the proposed converter are presented in this paper. The proposed configuration is simulated and validated experimentally.
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