Single Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor Research Articles

Online Diagnosis and Ride-Through Operation for Cascaded H-Bridge Converter Based STATCOM With a Single Open-Circuit IGBT

To address the most commonly seen single insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) open-circuit fault problems in cascaded H-bridge (CHB) converter based static synchronous compensator, a simple online fault diagnosis method and the corresponding ride-through operation approach are proposed. The method can quickly determine the exact location of the open-circuit IGBT through three steps, via analyzing the relationships between the dc bias in the three-phase output current of CHB converter, the transient dc rail voltage variations with respect to the averaged dc rail voltage, and the response of dc rail voltage and output current when the modulation approach of the faulty power module is adjusted. Afterwards, a fault ride-through approach is adopted to seamlessly transfer the modulation approach of faulty H-bridge module and it behaves as a half-bridge to provide a half of the rated output ac voltage. Meanwhile, the corresponding dc offset voltage from this faulty module is compensated by producing the same dc voltage in the healthy phase legs to avoid the dc bias in the three-phase output current. It has been demonstrated that the proposed fault diagnosis approach and the fault ride-through approach are effective in various adverse situations including grid voltage sudden disturbances and the load power sudden changes. Comprehensive simulated and experimental results have been provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Research on the Influence of Bond Wire Lift-Off Position on the Electro-Thermal Characteristics of IGBT

Based on the actual packaging structure of insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module, this article establishes the power loss model, and analyzes the influence of the position of the lift-off bond wire on the module. Through the theoretical analysis, it is found that the position of the lift-off bond wire is an important factor affecting the aging of the modules. And then the electrothermal coupling model of IGBT is established for simulation, and an experimental platform is built for verification. The results show that the distribution of bond wire lift-off position is one of the characteristics of bond wire failure. When the bond wire lift-off failure is concentrated on a single IGBT chip, it will accelerate the aging process of the modules. Therefore, this article considers that the position of the lift-off bond wire is a significant factor in the aging process of the modules, which should be fully considered in the bond wire state evaluation. In addition, the research results of this article can also provide theoretical reference for the optimization of IGBT module packaging structure.

OC fault diagnosis of multilevel inverter using SVM technique and detection algorithm

The Open Circuit (OC) faults occurring in switches of Multilevel Converters (MLC) may lead to undesirable operation of the converter. Therefore, fault detection and its localization in minimum time are necessary. This paper focuses on the fast fault detection algorithm based on the two samples technique and the fault localization algorithm using the Entropy of Wavelet Packets (EWP) as a feature. The EWP feature is used to classify and localize the OC faults in Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) of three-phase, three-level inverter using Support Vector Machine (SVM) based fault classification algorithm. The proposed technique can detect the fault in single IGBT and multiple IGBTs in a lesser time range of microseconds to 0.33 ms. It gives better performance and accuracy (99.70%) than previously proposed SVM algorithms, as the EWP-based feature extraction process used in this paper is simple and accurate with a less computational burden.

An Active Voltage Balance Method Based on Adjusting Driving Signals Time Delay for Series-Connected IGBTs

Connecting low-voltage insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) in series to withstand much higher dc -link voltages has some advantages over using a single high-voltage IGBT or the multilevel topologies. However, severe voltage imbalance during turn-off transient remains to be solved. In all existing methods, adjusting driving signal time delay (ADSTD) is attractive and has no penalty of sacrificing the switching performance of IGBT. Moreover, instead of using a snubber, the voltage imbalance caused by the difference in tail currents can be mitigated by using ADSTD as well. An active voltage balance method based on ADSTD is proposed and verified by experiments in this article. Besides, a more accurate equivalent capacitance for IGBT considering the stored carriers in the n-drift region is discussed. The factors affecting a proper driving signal time delay are also discussed in detail. These contents are well supported by experimental results as well.

A bio-inspired, low pressure drop liquid cooling system for high-power IGBT modules for EV/HEV applications

Thermal management of high power density insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) using a low pumping power is crucial for the development of high-performance electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). In the present work, the liquid cooling module inspired by a human respiratory system was developed to provide enhanced thermohydraulic performance. The suggested cooling module consists of a multiscale flow manifold connected to a metal foam layer bonded to the bottom substrate of IGBT module. The unique flow path uniformly distributes the coolant to multiple IGBTs with minimizing the required pumping power, while maximizing the heat exchange area. The porosity of the metal foam was determined considering the conflict between the conductive and convective heat flux. The developed cooling module was applied to the single IGBT module, including 6 IGBT/diode pairs generating 1.55 kW of heat. The proposed cooling module provided a low (0.2 K/W) thermal resistance using only ~2 kPa of the pressure drop that is approximately 10 and 100 times lower than that of previously reported turbulator and microchannel systems, respectively. Even when the number of IGBT/diode pairs is increased from 6 to 24 (single to quadruple IGBT modules), only ~8 kPa of the pressure drop was required, which shows the high scalability of the proposed solution. This work will help develop a compact, low pumping power cooling solution for high-performance EV/HEV applications.

Open-Circuit Fault Diagnosis of Wind Power Converter Using Variational Mode Decomposition, Trend Feature Analysis and Deep Belief Network

The power converter is a significant device in a wind power system. The wind turbine will be shut down and off grid immediately with the occurrence of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module open-circuit fault of the power converter, which will seriously impact the stability of grid and even threaten personal safety. However, in the existing diagnosis strategies for the power converter there are few single and double IGBT module open-circuit fault diagnosis methods producing negative results, including erroneous judgment, omissive judgment and low accuracy. In this paper, a novel method to diagnose the single and double IGBT modules open-circuit faults of the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) wind turbine grid-side converter (GSC) is proposed: Primarily, by collecting the three-phase current varying with a wind speed of 22 states, including a normal state and 21 failure states of PMSG wind turbine GSC as the original signal data. Afterward, the original signal data are decomposed by using variational mode decomposition (VMD) to obtain the mode coefficient series, which are analyzed by the proposed method base on fault trend feature for extracting the trend feature vectors. Finally, the trend feature vectors are utilized as the input of the deep belief network (DBN) for decision-making and obtaining the classification results. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can diagnose the single and double IGBT modules open-circuit faults of GSC, and the accuracy is higher than the benchmark models.

Detection and identification of multiple IGBT open‐circuit faults in PWM inverters for AC machine drives

This study proposes a new scheme for online detection and identification of single and multiple insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) open-circuit faults in three-phase pulse-width modulation (PWM) inverters of AC machine drives, which is based on Park's vector of machine phase currents. First, the switch open-circuit faults are detected by monitoring dwell times of the vector of the actual phase currents expressed in the stationary reference frame in each sector, where the normalisation of the current to its reference value is utilised, by which the immunity to the false alarms in transient conditions is improved significantly. Then, the IGBT open-circuit faults are identified, where leg open-circuit conditions are in the first place determined based on the average values of the normalised line-to-line currents. Next, the single open-circuit IGBT is located from the polarity of the corresponding phase current. By the proposed diagnosis method, the fault detection time is at the longest about 52.3 and 54% of a fundamental period in the simulation and experimental tests, respectively, and the 27 possible cases of IGBT open-circuit faults combined for all IGBTs in the inverter can be identified. In addition, this algorithm can be implemented without any additional hardware and computational burden.

Performance investigation of an advanced diagnostic method for SSTPI-fed IM drives under single and multiple open IGBT faults

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze and investigate the performance of an improved fault detection and identification (FDI) method based on multiple criteria, applied to six-switch three-phase inverter (SSTPI)-fed induction motor (IM) drives under both single and multiple open insulated-gate bipolar transistors(IGBT) faults.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes an advanced diagnostic method for both single and multiple open IGBT faults dedicated to SSTPI-fed IM drives considering five distinct faulty operating conditions as follows: a single IGBT open-circuit fault, a single-phase open-circuit fault, a non-crossed double fault in two different legs, a crossed double fault in two different legs and a three-IGBT open-circuit fault. This is achieved because of the introduction of a new diagnosis variable provided using the information of the slope of the current vector in (α-β) frame. The proposed FDI method is based on the synthesis and the analysis, under both healthy and faulty operations, of the behaviors of the introduced diagnosis variable, the three motor phase currents and their normalized average values. Doing so, the developed FDI method allows a best compromise of fast detection and precision localization of IGBT open-circuit fault of the inverter.FindingsSimulation works, carried out considering the implementation of the direct rotor flux oriented control in an IM fed by the conventional SSTPI, have proved the high performance of the advanced FDI method in terms of fast fault detection associated with a high robustness against false alarms, against speed and load torque fast variations and against the oscillations of the DC-bus voltage in the case of both healthy and faulty operations.Research limitations/implicationsThis work should be extended considering the validation of the obtained simulation results through experiments.Originality/valueDifferent from other FDI methods, which suffer from a low diagnostic effectiveness for low load levels and false alarms during transient operation, this method offers the potentialities to overcome these drawbacks because of the introduction of the new diagnosis variable. This latter, combined with the information provided from the three motor phase currents and their normalized average values allow a more efficient detection and identification of IGBT open-circuit fault.

Heat dissipation study of graphene-based film in single tube IGBT devices

The insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) devices often work under significantly high voltage and current, and how to reduce loss within them and prevent damage to them, caused by excessive heating must be considered in their operation. In this paper, a three-dimensional model of a single-tube IGBT device is constructed to simulate the temperature field distribution. The influence of different nanometer and micrometer thicknesses of graphene-based film (GBF) on the heat dissipation performance of IGBT devices is studied. The simulation results show that GBF placed on a chip surface, as a heat spreader, can improve the lateral heat dissipation of local hot spots, with a high heat flux, and GBF can greatly reduce the highest temperature on the chip surface. Moreover, graphene-based film of micrometer thickness provides better heat dissipation than that of nanometer thickness.

Practical Research on VSC Prototype Based on IGBTs Serial Connected Technology

With the development of insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and pulsewidth modulation control strategy, the voltage source converter (VSC) is getting more and more popular, which can be used in high-voltage frequency converter, VSC-HVDC, FACTS, and custom power. In high voltage and high power applications, serial connection of IGBTs is a good solution to overcome the voltage limitation of the single IGBT. However, for using IGBTs in this way, a comprehensive range of issues need to be addressed, especially the static and dynamic voltage-sharing of each IGBT module. This paper presents the theoretical and practical study on how to use serial-connected IGBTs in a VSC, including adaptive dynamic voltage-balance strategy, voltage-balance circuit, power supply system, and valve vase electronics. A three-phase two-level VSC consisted of 6 arms multiplied by 12 serial-connected 3300 V IGBT modules is also developed. To test the performance of the VSC, pulse test of the one arm and inverter operation test of the whole VSC are carried out. The experimental results show that the maximum voltage imbalance is about 10%, the voltage shoots are less than 12%; and the VSC works stably, which indicates a solid foundation for industrial application.

Fault Diagnosis and Fault Tolerant Control of a Three-Phase VSI Supplying Sensorless Speed Controlled Induction Motor Drive

Fault diagnosis in variable speed drives under inverter faults has been widely addressed in the literature. However, research activities in this field have been always focused only on sensored motor drives. This paper deals with a mixed model-based and signal-based approach for both insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) open-circuit fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control in sensorless speed-controlled induction motor (IM) drive. Sliding mode observer (SMO) is used for speed and stator currents estimation and simultaneously open-switch fault diagnosis. Unlike the classical sensored drive systems, this structure presents particular dynamics under faulty operation-mode which can be taken into account for fault detection and identification (FDI) process designing. The proposed diagnostic algorithm is based on similarity test between measured and estimated currents to define the FDI index in the inverter. The proposed method allows detection and localization of single and multiple IGBT open-switch faults. To improve the reliability of the motor drive, the ability of the SMO to reconstitute the motor state estimation after the disturbance stage of the FTC application is verified. The proposed FDI and FTC schemes are implemented on a dSPACE DS1104 controller board for a 3-kW IM drive system. Several experiments are displayed to show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

Current residual‐based method for open‐circuit fault diagnosis in single‐phase PWM converter

This study presents an open-circuit fault diagnosis method based on residual changing rate instead of the specific switching signals injection for single insulated gate bipolar transistor in the single-phase pulse-width modulation (PWM) converter. Firstly, the mixed logical dynamic model of the single-phase PWM converter is established to obtain the residual of grid-side current. Then, the characteristics of residual changing rate are obtained through the combination of theoretical analysis and simulation results. Furthermore, the diagnostic variables based on the residual changing rate are defined by the isolation of switching signals. Also compared with the threshold, fault detection and location can be accomplished. The proposed diagnosis method does not need extra sensors and injection of special switching signals, which can reduce the diagnosis complexity and does not affect operating state of the system. Furthermore, the diagnostic method has fast diagnosis speed and robustness against false alarms under different operation conditions. Experimental results have illustrated the validity and feasibility of the proposed diagnostic method.

Interconnect Materials Enabling IGBT Modules to Achieve Stable Short-Circuit Failure Behavior

Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules, which can fail to stable short-circuit mode, have major applications in electricity network-related fields. Sn-3.5Ag solder joints and sintered Ag joints for the die attachment and Mo, Cu, Sn-3.5Ag, Al, and Ag foils for the top side insert (TSI) material in press pack like single IGBT samples have been investigated using overcurrent and current passage tests. The results reveal that Sn-3.5Ag solder joints in combination with Sn-3.5Ag, Al, or Ag foils can be employed to achieve stable short-circuit failure mode, where the best results are achieved with Ag foils. This can be attributed to the formation of conductive networks/channels through the failed IGBT and good alignment between the residual TSI material and the failed IGBT.

IR Camera Validation of IGBT Junction Temperature Measurement via Peak Gate Current

Infrared measurements are used to assess the measurement accuracy of the peak gate current (I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GPeak</sub> ) method for Insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)junction temperature measurement. Single IGBT chips with the gate pad in both the center and the edge are investigated, along with paralleled chips, as well as chips suffering partial bondwire lift-off. Results are also compared with a traditional electrical temperature measurement method: the voltage drop under low current (V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">CE (low )</sub> ). In all cases, the IG <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Peak</sub> method is found to provide a temperature slightly overestimating the temperature of the gate pad. Consequently, both the gate pad position and chip temperature distribution influence whether the measurement is representative of the mean junction temperature. These results remain consistent after chips are degraded through bondwire lift-off. In a paralleled IGBT configuration with nonnegligible temperature disequilibrium between chips, the I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GPeak</sub> method delivers a measurement based on the average temperature of the gate pads.

Dependence of overcurrent failure modes of IGBT modules on interconnect technologies

Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules which can fail to short circuit mode have great of applications in electricity network related fields. Single IGBT samples have been constructed with the standard Al wire bonding, flexible printed circuit board (PCB) interconnect and sandwich structure technologies. The overcurrent failure modes of the constructed IGBT samples have been tested under a range of energy levels, and the structures of the tested samples have been characterized with scanning electronic microscopy and three-dimensional X-ray computed tomography imaging. The results obtained indicate that the IGBT samples constructed with the three interconnect technologies can fail to both open circuit mode and short circuit mode. The sandwich structure IGBT sample can fail to short circuit mode under an energy level of 750J which can meet realistic industrial applications. The networked conductive phases within the solidification structure and the Sn-3.5Ag filled in the cracks within the residual Si IGBT are responsible for forming the conducting paths in the tested samples. Both liquid phase and gas phase can be formed and the highest temperature can reach the boiling point of Si even if the sandwich structure IGBT sample is tested with short circuit failure mode.

Active Snubber Energy Recovery Circuit for Series-Connected IGBTs

This paper presents a novel active snubber recovery circuit for series-connected insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). The proposed technique allows turnon and turnoff switching of the series IGBTs to be controlled and balanced through conventional snubber effects, but the configuration includes active circuitry to recover into the dc supply, the stored snubber energy. Detailed waveform analysis and associated mathematical equations are presented, supported by PSpice simulations. The proposed technique is practically demonstrated, at a scaled power level, on a single IGBT to illustrate the control concept and on three series-connected IGBTs to demonstrate dynamic voltage sharing.

Accelerated life testing and thermomechanical simulation in power electronic device development

Product development in the power electronic industry is characterized by the short time-to-market and high-reliability requirements. Improved design methods and advanced modelling techniques are therefore required to support package design selection and to arrive at lifetime prediction algorithms for failure prevention. In this work, experimental and computational activities aimed at supporting the development of a press-pack insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is reported. A testing rig for accelerated testing of single IGBT chips under controlled contact pressure conditions is presented. Then, thermomechanical simulations of accelerated tests by the finite element method provided stress-strain evolution in the device and insight into the sources of local degradation.

Switching-behavior improvement of insulated gate-controlled devices

MOSFETs and insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) devices are increasingly used in electronic circuits due to both their easy driving and ability to handle high currents and voltages at high-switching frequencies. This paper deals with a new driver technique that allows optimization of the switching speed, reduction of the energy losses during the switching time, and limitation of the electromagnetic interference (EMI). First, an analysis of voltage- and current-switching waveforms of gate-insulated devices is performed. Then, a method of controlling voltage and current slopes independently is shown using the one-cycle method or a suitable adaptive-driving technique based on a phase-locked loop (PLL) approach. These techniques were adopted in order to allow correct generation of the gate signals regardless of the operating conditions. Finally, practical results of the proposed driving circuit obtained using a single IGBT switch chopper are presented.

A high switching frequency IGBT PWM rectifier/inverter system for AC motor drives operating from single phase supply

A pulse width modulated (PWM) rectifier/inverter system using insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), capable of switching at 20 kHz is reported. The base drive circuit for the IGBT, incorporating short-circuit protection, is presented. The inverter uses an Undeland snubber together with a simple energy recovery circuit, which ensures reliable and efficient operation even for 20 kHz switching. The front end for the system is a regenerative single phase full bridge IGBT inverter along with an AC reactor. Steady-state design considerations are explained, and control techniques for unity power factor operation and fast current control of the front end power converter, in a rotating as well as a stationary reference frame, are discussed and compared. Results from computer simulations and experimental results for a 1.5 kW prototype system are presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>