Tradeoff Study of Heat Sink and Output Filter Volume in a GaN HEMT Based Single-Phase Inverter

Abstract

Abstract-This paper presents the trade-off study of heat sink and output filter volume of a GaN HEMT based single phase inverter. The selected topology is three-level Active Neutral point Clamped (ANPC) inverter, and the main aim is to explore the benefits of the GaN HEMTs at 600 V blocking class on the system level efficiency, and power density under wide range of operating conditions. The paper starts by introducing the inverter topology, selected PWM scheme and followed by the device features, static and dynamic characterisation and continues with presenting and discussing the results of extensive experimental and analytical characterisation. After this, the impact of GaN HEMTs on inverter volume is discussed in terms of heat sink and output filter volume analysis under different switching frequency and heat sink temperature conditions. The calculation of heat sink volume and single stage LC output filter volume are presented with respect to experimental results of single phase prototype. The findings from static, dynamic characterisation and single phase prototype results clearly show that GaN HEMT has excellent switching performance under wide load current and heat sink temperature conditions. The high performance of the inverter lead to reduction of the combined total volume, including output filter and heat sink volume.

Dynamic performance analysis of a 3.3 kV SiC MOSFET half-bridge module with parallel chips and body-diode freewheeling

“…In particular, is has been shown that the switching energy is virtually independent of the baseplate temperature over a broad range of temperature values. This finding confirms previous observations on lower voltage SiC MOSFETs, for which this particular feature has already been proven to be associated with disruptive possibilities to optimize system level power densities by joint optimization of the switching frequency and the heat-sink [4]. Here, results for the parallel operation of the transistors and their body-diodes are presented.…”

Individual device active cooling for enhanced system-level power density and more uniform temperature distribution

“…The topology of the above 3L-ANPC GaN inverter is shown in Because GaN HEMT has capability of reverse conduction, no parallel diodes needed. One PWM control method described in [2] was used to control this 3L-ANPC inverter. Synchronous rectification applied to decrease the conduction loss.…”

Impact of Wide-Bandgap Technology on Renewable Energy and Smart-Grid Power Conversion Applications Including Storage

“…From that same perspective, this paper reports on the learning done in recent years in some representative applications selected from the renewable energy applications domain (PV and wind). The findings clearly indicate that significant incremental benefits (not disruptive) can be drawn from WBG technology already as a drop-in replacement for Si, even with conventional standardized packaging solutions [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The higher initial price of the semiconductors is counter-balanced by savings in the filter elements and cooling, as well as by the possibility to do without free-wheeling diodes even in higher-voltage applications.…”

“…Because of the current and voltage rating involved, 650 V discrete transistors in the TO247 package were chosen for the main switches. This enabled a straightforward benchmark within the same exact power cell design with all available technologies [3][4][5], including Si IGBTs, SiC MOSFETs, and GaN HEMTs (gate injection type, GIT). The highest performance was achieved with GaN, with a small margin over SiC mainly because of the smaller parasitic capacitances and better switching, whereas both GaN and SiC decidedly outperformed Si.…”