Continuous-Caliber Semiconductor Components

Najoua Erroui (1) , Guillaume Gateau (2) , Nicolas Roux (3)

1 LAPLACE - LAboratoire PLasma et Conversion d'Energie
2 LAPLACE-CS - Convertisseurs Statiques
3 LAPLACE-GENESYS - Groupe ENergie Electrique et SYStémique

The needs in terms of power electronics has evolved and for high power applications, the increase of efficiency mainly goes through the increase of the voltage of the system. However, this is not possible with a conventional two-level topology because the semiconductor ranges are limited to 6.5 kV which approximatively corresponds to a blocking voltage of 3.6 kV. To overcome this semi-conductor limitation, multilevel topologies can be used and allow to extend the range of the DC bus input voltage while using smaller and more efficient components. Yet, the sizing of an optimal power converter with high efficiency and power density is hard to realize due to the discretization of semiconductor components calibers. Moreover, if we want to find the optimal value of the DC bus voltage for a specific application using an optimization algorithm, the use of continuous caliber for components will give better results. This paper aims to explain the used method to overcome this discretization by creating virtual components with exact suitable caliber, using the database parameters available from manufacturers. To do so, the used power converter losses and thermal models are recalled in order to specify the needed parameters. These parameters will be generated as to create the needed virtual component.

Mots clés: Semiconductor; Switching losses; Conduction losses; Thermal resistance; Power converter; Efficiency

Domaines: Matériaux et structures en mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Najoua Erroui, Guillaume Gateau, Nicolas Roux. Continuous-Caliber Semiconductor Components. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT), Feb 2018, Lyon, France. pp.658-663. ⟨hal-03656539⟩