scholarly journals A UNIVERSAL SOI-BASED HIGH TEMPERATURE GATE DRIVER INTEGRATED CIRCUIT FOR SiC POWER SWITCHES WITH ON-CHIP SHORT CIRCUIT PROTECTION

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 471-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIANG ZUO ◽  
ROBERT GREENWELL ◽  
SYED K. ISLAM ◽  
M. A. HUQUE ◽  
BENJAMIN J. BLALOCK ◽  
...  

In recent years, increasing demand for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has generated the need for reliable and low-cost high-temperature electronics which can operate at the high temperatures under the hood of these vehicles. A high-voltage and high temperature gate-driver integrated circuit for SiC FET switches with short circuit protection has been designed and implemented in a 0.8-micron silicon-on-insulator (SOI) high-voltage process. The prototype chip has been successfully tested up to 200°C ambient temperature without any heat sink or cooling mechanism. This gate-driver chip can drive SiC power FETs of the DC-DC converters in a HEV, and future chip modifications will allow it to drive the SiC power FETs of the traction drive inverter. The converter modules along with the gate-driver chip will be placed very close to the engine where the temperature can reach up to 175ΰC. Successful operation of the chip at this temperature with or without minimal heat sink and without liquid cooling will help achieve greater power-to-volume as well as power-to-weight ratios for the power electronics module.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (HITEC) ◽  
pp. 000233-000244
Author(s):  
R. L. Greenwell ◽  
B.M. McCue ◽  
M.I. Laurence ◽  
C.L. Fandrich ◽  
B.J. Blalock ◽  
...  

The growing demand for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has increased the need for high-temperature electronics that can operate at the temperatures that exist under the hood of these vehicles. In many cases this requires the use of thermal management systems to allow for the use of components not designed to operate at the ambient temperatures found in the engine compartment of an HEV. These systems add weight and complexity, which can increase the overall cost and reduce the efficiency of the vehicle. The alternative is to develop circuits and systems capable of operating with reduced or no thermal management. To this end, the latest version of our high-temperature gate driver integrated circuit (IC) has been developed. Designed and implemented on a 0.8-micron bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process, this gate driver chip is intended to drive silicon carbide (SiC) and other wide-bandgap (WBG) power field-effect transistors (FETs) for DC-DC converters and traction drives in HEVs. To enable this, the gate driver IC, which includes on-chip voltage regulators and protection circuitry, has been designed to operate at and successfully tested up to 200°C ambient temperature. Successful operation of the circuit at this temperature with minimal or no heat sink, and without liquid cooling, will help to achieve higher power-to-volume as well as power-to-weight ratios for the power electronics modules in HEVs.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (HITEC) ◽  
pp. 000349-000354
Author(s):  
Liang Zuo ◽  
S. K. Islam ◽  
M. A. Huque ◽  
C. Su ◽  
B. J. Blalock ◽  
...  

In recent years, the rapid increase in the market for hybrid electric vehicles has generated great demand for low-cost, high-volume, high-temperature power converters that can work in harsh environment (temperature ≥ 150°C) conditions. Most of the commercially available power semiconductor devices and associated control electronics are rated for maximum of 85°C ambient temperature. Under this circumstance, wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors have become a better alternative due to their ability to operate at much higher temperatures (≥500°C) than conventional bulk silicon based devices. As with any other power devices, SiC switches also require fault detection and protection mechanisms for their reliable application to real systems. One severe fault situation is the short circuit at the load end, which can cause very high surge currents that flow through the power switches. Quick detection and removal of the short circuit fault current by external circuitry is required to protect the power switch as well as the power converter module. This work presents a high-temperature (≥200°C), high-voltage short circuit protection (SCP) for SiC power devices. The circuit is designed using a resistor sensing method to provide protections for both “normally ON” and “normally OFF” SiC FET switches. A rail-to-rail input comparator is employed to ensure that the circuit operates under different power supply levels. The prototype circuit is implemented using a 0.8-micron, 2-poly, and 3-metal BCD-on-SOI process. The die size for the protection circuit is 0.52 mm2 (845 μm × 612 μm). The circuit has been successfully tested up to 200°C ambient temperature under power supplies ranging from 10 V to 30 V without any heat sink or cooling mechanism.


Author(s):  
M. A Huque ◽  
R. Vijayaraghavan ◽  
M. Zhang ◽  
B. J. Blalock ◽  
L M. Tolbert ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (HITEN) ◽  
pp. 000096-000103
Author(s):  
Yoann Dusé ◽  
Fabien Laplace ◽  
Nicolas Joubert ◽  
Xavier Montmayeur ◽  
Noureddine Zitouni ◽  
...  

We present in this paper two new products for high-temperature, low-voltage (2.8V to 5.5V) power management applications. The first product is an original implementation of a monolithic low dropout regulator (XTR70010), able to deliver up to 1A at 230°C with less than 1V of dropout. This new voltage regulator can source an output current level up to 1.5A. The regulated output voltage can be selected among 32 preset values from 0.5V to 3.6V in steps of 100mV, or it can be obtained with a pair of external resistors. The circuit integrates complex analog and digital control blocks providing state of the art features such as UVLO protection, chip enable control, soft start-up and soft shut-down, hiccup short-circuit protection, customer selectable thermal shut-down, input power supply protection, output overshoot remover and stability over an extremely wide range of load capacitances. The circuit offers a fair ±2% absolute accuracy and is guaranteed latch-up free. The second product is an advanced high-temperature, low-power, digitally trimmable voltage reference (XTR75020). Thanks to a custom, 1-wire serial interface, the absolute precision and the temperature coefficient can be adjusted in order to obtain an accuracy better than 0.5% with a temperature coefficient bellow ±20ppm/°C. On-chip OTP memory for trimming of absolute value and temperature coefficient makes the circuit extremely accurate and almost insensitive to drifts over time and temperature. The circuit features a class AB output buffer able to source or sink up to 5mA and remains stable with any load capacitance up to 50μF. The XTR75020 has nine preset possible output voltages. The source and sink short circuit current always remains bellow 25mA. The quiescent current consumption is 300μA typical at 230°C while the standby current is, in all cases, under 20μA. Both devices are designed on a latch-up free silicon-on-insulator process.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (HITEC) ◽  
pp. 000283-000288 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Reese ◽  
R. Shaw ◽  
J. Hornberger ◽  
R. Schupbach ◽  
A. Lostetter

This paper discusses the development of a high temperature (i.e., 230 °C ambient) 100V–300V/15V 20W isolated power supply. The power supply is implemented using Silicon-Carbide (SiC) power switches, high-temperature silicon on insulator (HTSOI) control circuitry, as well as custom high temperature magnetics and packaging technology. The heart of this power supply is a custom-built PWM controller. The controller was built utilizing HTSOI component, which operate at temperatures as high as 300 °C. The developed power supply targets high ambient temperature environment applications and includes features such as housekeeping power supply, soft-start and under-voltage lockout. The power supply is packaged using a multi-chip module (MCM) packaging approach. A single layer power substrate and a multiple layer control substrate are used. Bare die devices are utilized to save space, reduce parasitic impedances, and increase temperature of operation and reliability. This paper provides details on the electrical and thermal design as well as fabrication and characterization of the power supply. Additionally, results of the full characterization of this power supply are provided; this includes temperature testing up to 230 °C, efficiency results, load transition behavior, output ripple, etc.


Author(s):  
Richard R. Grzybowski ◽  
Ben Gingrich

Advances in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) integrated circuit technology and the steady development of wider band gap semiconductors like silicon carbide are enabling the practical deployment of high temperature electronics. High temperature civilian and military electronics applications include distributed controls for aircraft, automotive electronics, electric vehicles and instrumentation for geothermal wells, oil well logging and nuclear reactors. While integrated circuits are key to the realization of complete high temperature electronic systems, passive components including resistors, capacitors, magnetics and crystals are also required. This paper will present characterization data obtained from a number of silicon high temperature integrated evaluated over a range of elevated temperatures and aged at a selected high temperature. This paper will also present a representative cross section of high temperature passive component characterization data for device types needed by many applications. Device types represented will include both small signal and power resistors and capacitors. Specific problems encountered with the employment of these devices in harsh environments will be discussed for each family of components. The goal in presenting this information is to demonstrate the viability of a significant number of commercially available silicon integrated circuits and passive components that operate at elevated temperatures as well as to encourage component suppliers to continue to optimize a selection of their product offerings for operation at higher temperatures. In addition, systems designers will be encouraged to view this information with an eye toward the conception and implementation of reliable and affordable high temperature systems.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (11) ◽  
pp. 4417-4424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Valle-Mayorga ◽  
Caleb P. Gutshall ◽  
Khoa M. Phan ◽  
Ivonne Escorcia-Carranza ◽  
H. Alan Mantooth ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (HITEC) ◽  
pp. 000388-000393
Author(s):  
Dominique Bergogne ◽  
Fabien Dubois ◽  
Christian Martin ◽  
Khalil El Falahi ◽  
Luong Viet Phung ◽  
...  

Normally-On Silicon Carbide (SiC) JFETs are good candidates for power switches in high temperature applications, in Three-Phase Voltage-Fed Inverters used to drive Electro-Mechanical Actuators (EMA) for the more electrical aircraft where the ambient varies from −55 °C to 200 °C. The power of the EMA is in the 1 to 5 kW range, the DC bus voltage is 540 V. It is also necessary to implement passive subsystems such as Electro-Magnetic-Interference (EMI) filters, power inductors, transformers, packaging and interconnection solution that withstand the wide temperature range. The gate driver for normally-On devices must include a safe solution against short-circuit in the event of a power supply failure. The experimental converter is built using engineering samples such as SiC JFETs, SOI drivers and laboratory made components such as inductive wire wound, nano-crystalline core components, SOI integrated driver, assembled with a high temperature package and technology. Finally, the Smart EMA test bench is presented.


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