A nobel low-cost, simple and unity-power-factor electronic ballast is presented. The proposed electronic ballast employs a bypassing capacitor- and load networks composed of ballast capacitors and small charge pump capacitors as power factor correction circuit combined with the secondary winding of the transformer in the self-excited current-fed push-pull resonant inverter(CF-PPRI), resulting in cost-effectiveness and higher efficiency. By analyzing the princip1es of power factor correction mathematically, optimum design guidelines are presented. Since the lamps are used in power factor correction stage, the input power is automatically adjusted according to the number of the lamps.