WBG-Based PEBB Module for High Reliability Power Converters

Abstract

The increasing presence of power electronic converters in the modern world – from electric vehicles, up to industrial applications – brings up concerns about their reliability, especially in the case of the Wide Band-Gap (WBG) devices. Moreover, ensuring high reliability becomes more challenging due to constantly increasing focus on the development of new types of power supplies in a shorter time. Thus, research over reliability improvement of modern power converters was initiated. In this paper, a concept of Design For Reliability (DfR) procedure, suitable for projects with a short lifespan, and a case study of Power Electronic Building Block (PEBB) designed according to the proposed procedure are presented. Furthermore, a Reliability Oriented Control (ROC) algorithm for WBG-based converters is discussed.

Keywords

• Semiconductor device reliability
• power MOSFETs
• reliability engineering