This paper describes bifurcation phenomena of a PWM controlled dc shunt drive. Bifurcation behavior of the system is observed by varying system parameters. The route of transition from periodic behavior to chaos has been investigated. The stability of the system is found out using the state transition matrix over one switching cycle (the monodromy matrix) including the state transition matrices during each switching (the saltation matrices). The parameter values at which the nominal period-1 orbit loses stability is determined. A new controller that can significantly extend the parameter range for nominal period-1 operation has been proposed.