Fraunhofer IEE hat dies direkt geteilt
Wide Band Gap (WBG) power semiconductors are a key innovation to advance power electronics in terms of efficiency, cost and weight. No matter if it’s a photovoltaic inverter, a battery DC/DC converter, a phone charger or a drive inverter: Every power electronic converter relies on power semiconductors to generate the output currents and voltages that are required by its target application. Historically, Silicon (Si) power semiconductors, mostly IGBTs and MOSFETs, have been the go-to solution. They have been under development for well over 50 years and are therefore widely available from numerous manufacturers for different voltages, currents, and packages. In recent years, WBG power semiconductors, such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN), have entered the market as interesting alternatives to Si. They provide a significantly higher critical electric field strength, which means that they can endure the same voltages as Si devices, but at a fraction of their size. This directly influences the channel geometry and parasitic capacitances for these WBG devices, which reduces conduction losses, switching times, and switching loss energies. Since switching loss energies directly limit the applicable switching frequency, which power electronic designers try to maximize in order to reduce passive components (inductors, capacitors) within a power electronic converter, WBG devices are gaining more and more attention for both high power density as well as lightweight converters. For more info, like & follow Sebastian Sprunck, Marco Jung, Hauke Lutzen, Christian Lottis and Olaf Bendix, who will be hosting a seminar with practical trainings on this topic on April 8th and 9th. This seminar is a cooperation between Fraunhofer IEE, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, IALB - Institute for Electrical Drives, Power Electronics and Devices and Tektronix Europe