Design Tools for Rapid Multidomain Virtual Prototyping of Power Electronic Systems

Abstract

The need for multidisciplinary virtual prototyping in power electronics has been well established however design tools capable of facilitating a rapid, iterative virtual design process do not exist. A key challenge in developing such tools is identifying and developing modelling techniques which can account for 3D, geometrical design choices without unduly affecting simulation speed. This challenge has been addressed in this work using model order reduction techniques and a prototype power electronic design tool incorporating these techniques is presented. A relevant electro-thermal power module design example is then used to demonstrate the performance of the software and model order reduction techniques. Five design iterations can be evaluated, using 3D inductive and thermal models, under typical operating and startup conditions on a desktop PC in less than 15 minutes. The results are validated experimentally for both thermal and electrical domains.

Developing Power Semiconductor Device Model for Virtual Prototyping of Power Electronics Systems

“…In condition 1, simple SiC-JFET device model (ideal switch with a parallel RC branch) as that presented in [3] is used and parasitic inductance values are extracted by the software. In condition 2, the presented SiC-JFET model is used, however there is no parasitic inductance values extracted.…”

“…The accuracy of these techniques when applied to a typical power electronic simulation is shown in [3].…”

“…As shown in [3], the proposed VP design tool is capable of both thermal and electromagnetic model generation. Electromagnetic model and its interaction with power semiconductor models will be focused in this paper.…”

“…A VP design tool has been proposed by authors in [2], [3], where power electronics system thermal performance has been validated. However, accurate modelling of the power semiconductor device was found to be a limitation in the above papers.…”

Gate–Emitter Pre-threshold Voltage as a Health-Sensitive Parameter for IGBT Chip Failure Monitoring in High-Voltage Multichip IGBT Power Modules

“…Recently, there has been a growing interest in the application of health monitoring techniques to improve the operational reliability of the IGBT power modules. In general, there are mainly three points which are of interest in IGBT health monitoring: i) virtual junction temperature (Tvj) , ii) solder degradation [29][30][31][32], and iii) bond wire failure [29,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Some of the health monitoring techniques proposed are in-situ, meaning health monitoring is achieved via a test circuit exclusively developed for detecting degradation and implemented onboard power converters.…”