IGBT Power Research Articles

Development of a novel full thyristors hybrid DC circuit breaker combining vacuum and gas integrated series switch

In order to accelerate the fault current transfer rate of hybrid DC circuit breaker (HDCCB) and reduce the cost. A novel full thyristors HDCCB combining vacuum and gas integrated series switch is proposed in this paper, which accelerates the fault current transferred. Moreover, the breaking of higher current levels and lower cost by using the full thyristors to replace the IGBT and other power electronic (PE) devices are realized. The operation of proposed HDCCB is analyzed in detail, and the theoretical numerical model is derived. With the key parameters optimized in terms of the operation HDCCB, the breaking current capability and the effectiveness are verified by the simulation model. Based on this, preliminary tests from a developed low-power prototype are presented and verified the performance of the proposed novel HDCCB.

Power Semiconductor Junction Temperature and Lifetime Estimations: A Review

The lifetime of power electronic systems is the focus of both the academic and industrial worlds. Today, compact systems present high switching frequency and power dissipation density, causing high junction temperatures and strong thermal fluctuations that affect their performance and lifetime. This paper is a review of the existing techniques for the electro-thermal modelling of Mosfet and IGBT devices regarding lifetime estimation. The advantages and disadvantages of the methodologies used to achieve lifetime prediction are discussed, and their benefits are highlighted. All the factors required to predict power electronic device lifetime, including Mosfet and IGBT electrical models, the computation of power losses, thermal models, temperature measurement and management, lifetime models, mission profiles, cycle counting, and damage accumulation, are described and compared.

Preparation of carbon nanotube composite solder and analysis of the thermal properties

Abstract The solder layer constitutes a crucial component of IGBT power modules. It endures significant thermal stress during operation, and the magnitude of this stress correlates with the coefficient of thermal expansion. To prevent fatigue damage to the solder layer during operation, it is necessary to reduce the solder’s coefficient of thermal expansion, thereby alleviating the impact of thermal stress. In this paper, the method of adding carbon nanotube powder to solder is proposed to solve this problem. Firstly, the relationship between thermal stress and the coefficient of thermal expansion is analyzed, and then the mechanical ball milling method is employed to prepare composite solder with a 0.05% carbon nanotube content. Scanning electron microscopy observation of the prepared composite solder reveals homogeneous mixing and uniform distribution of carbon nanotubes on the solder particle surfaces. Furthermore, thermal expansion coefficient tests were conducted on the sintered carbon nanotube composite solder, revealing a 16.2% reduction in the coefficient due to the incorporation of carbon nanotubes.

IGBT power module based on pressureless nano-silver sintering optimization process and its performance characterization

IGBT power module based on pressureless nano-silver sintering optimization process and its performance characterization

A modular IGBT power stack − based and open hardware framework for small wind turbines assessment

Wind energy technologies have emerged as the predominant renewable energy source within the framework of present-day electric power systems. Their design process, aligned with foundational theories, ought to be precision-engineered and systematized to fully maximize the potential of this energy source. This study presents a platform as solution designed and built to characterize and assess Small Wind Turbines (SWT), based on free software and open hardware. Additionally, the developed methodology step-by-step guide is disclosed. The characterization is based on the use of Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) as machine widely adopted in Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) less than 100 kW. The core theoretical background is detailed to confirm the accuracy of the parameters procedures acquisitions. Poles number, machine design constant, armature reactance, synchronous reactance, and power-dynamic characteristic related to WECS are determined. This laboratory set-up is composed of variable industrial fan, rectifier, boost converter and a bidirectional Direct-Current (DC) source as a battery emulator. All components have been assembled within the laboratory environment using commercially available elements. Low implementation cost and versatile methods determine the real input in practice of this platform. To validate the effectiveness for any SWT, a real one is tested, and every parameter proposed is calculated.

Impact of cryogenic temperatures on high-power semiconductor performance

Power electronics is necessary for the independent control of the stator windings of electric aircraft motors. The benefit of using liquid fuel to cool conductors to utilize their high current density has enabled power electronics to be cooled by proxy. While small scale semiconductors have been found to be degraded during operation at cryogenic temperatures, results for systems rated for high power cryogenic applications have not been explored as much. In this work we test the performance of IGBT power electronics from room temperature to 77 K, with a focus on temperatures expected for electric aircraft motors using liquid natural gas (LNG, BP about 120 K) as the cooling medium. In this work, the measure of performance was taken to be the ability to be turned on and off (switched) by an input signal provided by a function generator. We also tested the cold-start ability i.e., the lowest temperature in which the power inverter will start. The lowest cold-start temperature was measured as 140 K. Experimentally, we also observed that both conduction losses and switching loss from a low-power constant current with an operational frequency of 10 kHz were sufficient to allow the inverter to work down to 105 K (below the LNG boiling point).

Enhancing the Precision of Proportional Electromagnetic Actuators used in Automatic Processes Control

In this study, an electromagnetic actuator is presented, that features precise proportional action and wide displacement capabilities. This actuator operates in two distinct modes. In the proportional mode, the actuator positions its mobile equipment within a 0 to 14 mm range, governed by the balance between electromagnetic force and spring elastic force. By employing the pulse width modulation (PWM) principle, the electronic control section finely tunes the duty cycle factor and the coil current, thus achieving precise displacement control. The displacement control was further enhanced through the integration of a magnetic sensor that correlates movement with the Hall Voltage. This additional feature augments the actuator's precision by providing real-time feedback on the position of the mobile equipment, thereby refining the overall control mechanism. In the modulated mode, the actuator's oscillation frequency spans from 1Hz to 10 Hz, requiring control from the arbitrary signal generator. The PWM waveform controller DRV101 and the related electronic circuits are powered by two stabilized encapsulated continuous voltage sources that are compact enough to fit inside the actuator housing. The final power stage was represented by two power IGBT transistors that are powered by an external continuous voltage source. Experiments were also realized for heat management and to measure the plunger force at different distances between 0 and 14 mm. These analyses aim to optimize performance across both operational modes, advancing the efficiency and reliability of precision control systems in automated processes.

A Thermally Enhanced Film Adhesive for Assembling High Power Density Electronic Devices

Assembly adhesives play a crucial role in packaging and thermal management design for microelectronics devices. The main function of the adhesives is attaching multiple components together to deliver designed functionalities and ensure integrity and reliability of the device. As requirements for performance and functionality increase, heat generated from these devices increases exponentially. For example, local heat flux can easily exceed 50 W/cm2 for IGBT power modules while it may reach several hundred W/cm2 at active areas for Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifiers. However, intrinsic thermal conductivity of polymer-based adhesives is around 0.2 W/mK, which increasingly becomes a thermal bottleneck in high power density electronics devices, especially those used in defense and aerospace systems. Effectively and safely dissipating the high heat and ensuring device reliability have become one of the critical tasks in the development of modern aerospace and defense systems. This paper presents an adhesive film that uses non-electrically conductive particles with high thermal conductivity as fillers in the adhesive to enhance thermal transport. The adhesive film offers an effective thermal conductivity around 0.7 W/mK, which is more than a 3X improvement over conventional assembly adhesives. In addition, the film adhesive has a long work life at ambient conditions with significantly improved processability and controllability, such as bondline thickness control and uniformity, no voids/air pockets, no or minimum resin bleed, etc. They can also be easily converted into preforms with complicated shapes/geometries with typical tolerances less than 10 mil to facilitate assembly processes and ensure a clean and waste free environment.

A Comparison of Chip Temperature Acquisition Technologies of IGBT Power Modules

A Comparison of Chip Temperature Acquisition Technologies of IGBT Power Modules

Accurate Multiport Network Model for Forced Oscillations Analysis and Suppression of Multichip IGBT Power Modules

Accurate Multiport Network Model for Forced Oscillations Analysis and Suppression of Multichip IGBT Power Modules

IoT-Based IGBT Power Module Health Monitoring System With RUL Estimation for Electric Drive Applications

IoT-Based IGBT Power Module Health Monitoring System With RUL Estimation for Electric Drive Applications

Fatigue Propagation Analysis of Crack Failure in High Power IGBT Solder Based on Multi-physics Coupling Model and XFEM

Fatigue Propagation Analysis of Crack Failure in High Power IGBT Solder Based on Multi-physics Coupling Model and XFEM

Integrated simulation of electromechanical and thermal dynamics of voltage source converters

This paper proposes a simplified yet accurate enough thermal model of Voltage Source Converters (VSC), aimed at circumventing the high computational cost of existing models, which prevents their use in electromechanical simulations. The proposed model reduces to a simple first-order system for thermal dynamics plus two quadratic equations separately modeling the IGBT and diode power losses. In addition, a methodology is provided to derive the proposed VSC thermal model parameters from manufacturer data. The proposed model is tested for two types of devices, both in steady and transient states. The results show that the reduced-order thermal model produces accurate results at a low computational cost, making it especially suitable for the co-simulation of thermal and electrical dynamic phenomena.

Innovative Solid-State Ferroresonance-Suppressing Circuit for Voltage Transformer Protection in Wind Generation Systems

Ferroresonance, as an undesirable disturbance, leads to significant overvoltage and distorted waveforms. This phenomenon can be highly damaging to voltage transformers and other parallel-connected equipment and can entail catastrophic consequences. This paper aims to design and study a solid-state ferroresonance-suppressing circuit (SSFSC) to protect voltage transformers (VTs) together with other parallel-connected equipment in wind generation systems from the adverse effects of the ferroresonance phenomenon. The proposed structure consists of low-voltage circuits, including power IGBTs. The excellent performance of the proposed SSFSC in suppressing ferroresonance overvoltage in wind generation VTs has been authenticated by analyses conducted utilizing a wind generation system model. In order to validate the performance of the proposed SSFSC, detailed analytical studies and time-domain simulations have been carried out employing a MATLAB/Simulink environment. The results verify that the proposed SSFSC can effectively suppress ferroresonance phenomena in VTs and mitigate their accompanying overvoltages with a high operational speed.

Life-cycle energy demand comparison of medium voltage Silicon IGBT and Silicon Carbide MOSFET power semiconductor modules in railway traction applications

Power semiconductors process roughly 70 % of global energy, with a higher percentage expected as worldwide transport electrification, renewables and wide-band-gap (WBG) semiconductors are implemented, significantly affecting global energy savings. This manuscript evaluates the cumulative energy demand (CED) encompassing the manufacture and use-phase in a railway traction application of silicon (Si) and silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductor modules. Realistic manufacturing data from a power semiconductor fab has been considered for 3.3 kV/450 A state-of-the-art Si and SiC LinPak modules. SiC devices presented around 2.6 – 3.8× higher CED per area than Si devices in the manufacturing phase. However, due to the considerably smaller SiC chip area per ampere required, a 1.1 – 1.6× lower grey energy than Si technology is estimated. For the first time, such analysis is based on specialized power semiconductor fab data for both technologies and provides a baseline for the life cycle energy assessment of power electronics systems. Besides, the use-phase energy losses were evaluated for a realistic railway application, considering an operational lifetime of 30 years. The module manufacturing energy is negligible compared to the use-phase stage. Furthermore, the SiC technology presented an estimated energy-saving potential of 24 MWh/lifetime per module compared to the Si device.

A Novel Thermal Management Method for Enhancing the Consistency of IGBT Heat Stress in Converter

The reliability of power electronic devices and converters is closely related to thermal stress. However, the research on IGBT heat balance in the converter is still insufficient. To address this problem, a novel thermal management method for enhancing the consistency of IGBT heat stress in a converter is proposed in this paper. A converter-level method based on the bus voltage ringing is utilized for the IGBT junction temperature monitoring. The IGBT power loss can be controlled by modulating the switching frequency, thus IGBT temperature can be adjusted to improve the IGBT thermal consistency of the converter. The validity of the proposed method is verified by experiments with unbalanced load and unbalanced thermal impedance for a three-phase inverter. Besides, the transient process and steady-state performance with asynchronous switching frequency are demonstrated. The method proposed can enhance the thermal consistency effectively and be promising for improving the reliability of the converter with little effect on the performance.

Accuracy estimation of low-current voltage drop method for junction temperature monitoring under DC power cycling

A thorough accuracy estimation of the well-known low-current voltage drop method is carried out in this paper. A high-performance infrared camera is utilized as the reference in a DC power-cycling test on a commercial IGBT power module. The result shows that the low-current voltage drop method produces generally a higher temperature than the actual, in particular at the bond wire's joint point. However, a simple compensation method with a linear function can be easily adopted to compensate the temperature difference. After compensation, the maximum error of temperature swing is 0.28 °C.

An improved method for monitoring the junction temperature of 1200V / 50A IGBT modules used in power conversion systems

Abstract Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is one of the most used devices for high-power-density and high-voltage applications such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, and smart grids. However, the field of IGBT research is still in its infancy owing to the failures that can happen to the module due to its temperature rise. Hence, the junction temperature T j measurement of the active region is essential for analyzing and predicting the degradation state of the IGBT device. In this paper, an overall study, including uses of the governing thermal equation to estimate the junction temperature T j, experimental analysis of the IGBT component during operation, and a numerical finite element (FE) study, was conducted. The thermal management FE model is conducted to predict temperature variation along time and heat spreading inside the IGBT layers. To investigate the material’s properties and structure change during operation impacting the junction temperature, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy X-ray dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were performed on the IGBT power module. Results were used to interpret the difference between the experimental and the predicted temperature values. For effectiveness validation purposes, results obtained from the proposed FE model are compared with the results of the experimental thermo-sensitive electrical parameters (TSEP) method. Good agreement was found between the experiment and the proposed FE model.

An Overview of Strengths and Weaknesses in Using MOSFET Experience for Modeling GaN HEMT

GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) represent an emerging and key enabling technology for obtaining highly efficient and compact power electronic systems. The use of circuit models of power devices is essential for the optimal design of power converters, but while they have been deeply investigated for power MOSFETs and IGBTs, GaN HEMT models are still in their early stages. This paper first discusses the main similarities and differences between conventional MOSFETs and GaN HEMTs in terms of the datasheet information that the device manufacturers use to obtain the behavioral models that they usually provide as Spice-like netlists. Then, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of using the behavioral models of MOSFET for GaN HEMT. To achieve this aim, a study of the existing GaN HEMT models revealed the lack of a proper modeling strategy for the dynamic conduction resistance, which is the most critical aspect of HEMT modeling. The difficulty is due to the dependence of the dynamic conduction resistance on quantities related to the application, which is a behavior absent in power MOSFETs. Consequently, future research efforts on GaN HEMT modeling must face this issue.

Paralleling of IGBT Power Semiconductor Devices and Reliability Issues

Paralleling of power semiconductor devices is inevitable considering their widespread application and exploitation in the extended horizon of these applications. However, paralleling of power semiconductor devices is prone to severe unbalancing corresponding to the non-idealities of device parameters, which leads to non-identical dynamic and static characteristics of the power devices, as well as the operating conditions and aging. Therefore, the currents are generally non-uniform and cause the derating of the system. This paper discusses and analyzes issues associated with the paralleling of IGBT power devices, which can evoke serious reliability issues. Furthermore, the paper examines the techniques and methodologies that have been proposed to reduce the issue of current unbalancing of parallel-connected power devices.