abstract: With the penetration of distributed renewable energy and the development of semiconductor technology, power electronic devices could be utilized to interface re- newable energy generation and the distribution power grid. However, when directly connected to the power grid, the semiconductors inside the power electronic devices could be vulnerable to the power system transient, especially to lightning strikes. The work of this research focuses on the insulation coordination of power elec- tronic devices connected directly to the power distribution system. The Solid State Transformer (SST) in Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) system could be a good example for grid connected power electronic devices. Simulations were conducted in Power Systems Computer Aided Design (PSCAD) software. A simulation done to the FREEDM SST showed primary re- sults which were then compare to simulation done to the grid-connected operating Voltage Source Converter (VSC) to get more objective results. Based on the simulation results, voltage surges caused by lightning strikes could result in damage on the grid-connected electronic devices. Placing Metal Oxide Surge Arresers (MOSA, also known as Metal Oxide Surge Varistor, MOV) at the front lter could provide eective protection for those devices from power transient. Part of this research work was published as a conference paper and was presented at CIGRE US National Conference: Grid of the Future Symposium [1] and North American Power Symposium [2]. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Engineering 2017

Dans cette thèse, nous abordons la conception des composants d'électronique de puissance, intégrés sur semi-conducteur. Dans cette large problématique, nous nous intéressons plus particulièrement aux méthodes et outils logiciels et numériques pour le dimensionnement technologique et géométrique. Ainsi, nous abordons le dimensionnement en faisant des compromis d'intégration entre la technologie du composant de puissance et les fonctions électriques de ses composants annexes, en prenant en compte la fiabilité de la réalisation technologique en salle blanche et les impacts de l'environnement électronique. Pour cela, nous avons proposé des démarches, méthodes et outils pour repousser les limites existantes de la conception, visant à offrir le support correspondant en terme de « design kit ». Finalement, nous appliquons les méthodes et les démarches choisies et développées, au dimensionnement d'un MOSFET de puissance (VDMOS), pour différents cahiers des charges. / The thesis deals with the design of integrated power electronics components. In this large problematic, the thesis focuses on the methods and numerical and software tools for the geometrical and technological sizing. So, the thesis deals with the sizing carrying out compromises between the technology of a power component and the electrical characteristics of its auxiliary components, taking into account the reliability of the technological making and the impacts of the electronic environment. In this way, approaches, methods and tools are proposed to push away the existing design limits, to offer the corresponding elements for the design kit. Finally, the developed and chosen methods and approaches are applied to the sizing of a power MOSFET (VDMOS) according to several cases of specifications

Magnetic bearings are used to keep objects in certain position via magnetic force. There is no creation of friction, because there is no touch. It is necessary to supply magnetic bearings with electric energy. Linear transistor amplifiers or switched-mode amplifiers can be used to supply them with electric energy.

De nos jours, l'effet du réchauffement planétaire devient une question primordiale pour l'humanité. La plupart des sources d'énergie traditionnelles comme l’énergie thermique, le nucléaire, l'hydroélectricité, etc. sont dangereux et/ou potentiellement dangereux pour la nature et l'être humain. Par conséquent, une «énergie verte» est fortement souhaitée. L'énergie verte a deux caractéristiques : d'une part l’utilisation de sources d'énergie renouvelables comme l'énergie solaire ou géothermique, etc au lieu des sources d'énergie traditionnelles, ainsi qu’un meilleur rendement. Un rapport récent a souligné que la perte d'énergie aux États-Unis est plus importante que la somme de toutes les énergies renouvelables générées. Il est donc essentiel d'utiliser efficacement l'électricité et de limiter les pertes. Malheureusement, les pertes sont l'endémie des composants semi-conducteurs, le dispositif central de tout système de conversion de puissance. Le silicium (Si), le matériau le plus utilisé dans les composants semi-conducteurs a atteint sa limite physique. Des semi-conducteurs à large bande interdite tels que SiC, GaN, Ga2O3 et le diamant sont des matériaux prometteurs pour fabriquer des dispositifs à faibles pertes en état ON et avec une tension de claquage à l’état OFF élevée. Parmi eux, le diamant est un semi-conducteur idéal pour les appareils de haute puissance en raison de ses propriétés physiques supérieures aux autres matériaux. Les progrès récents sur ce sujet permettent de considérer le développement de dispositifs de puissance en diamant, par exemple les MOSFETs. Afin de réaliser un MOSFET en diamant semi-conducteur, le nombre de problèmes à surmonter est important, particulièrement maîtriser l'interface diamant/oxyde. Dans ce contexte, G. Chicot et A. Marechal (anciens doctorants de notre groupe) ont introduit les dispositifs de test MOSCAP O-diamant/Al2O3 et montré que l'alignement des bandes est de type I à l'interface O-diamant/Al2O3, ce qui est favorable pour réaliser à la fois un MOSFET à inversion et un MOSFET à déplétion. Ce doctorat s’inscrit dans la suite de ces deux thèses. Il a eu deux objectifs principaux: 1. Les recherches fondamentales, qui se consacrent à la compréhension de la caractéristique électrique d'un dispositif de test de diamant MOSCAP; 2. Partant de la compréhension du MOSCAP, un MOSFET en diamant est réalisé par le contrôle de la conduction de courant volumique. La thèse comprend ainsi trois chapitres : Le chapitre 1 traite du contexte des dispositifs de puissance ainsi que des propriétés physiques du diamant et de l'état de l'art des dispositifs en diamant. Nous introduisons également le principe de fonctionnement d'un dispositif de test MOSCAP idéal et de l'état de l'art des O-diamant MOSCAP. Le chapitre 2 est consacré à la compréhension fondamentale des O-diamant MOS capacités et comprennent trois parties principales: la partie 1 traite des questions de méthodologie liées à la croissance du diamant, le procédé de fabrication et de caractérisation électrique. Nous allons construire un modèle électrostatique empirique pour les MOSCAP O-diamant. La partie 2 discute de l'origine du courant de fuite et de la dispersion de la caractéristique capacitance-fréquence lorsque la MOSCAP est polarisée en négatif. La partie 3 traite de l'origine du courant de fuite et de la dispersion de la caractéristique capacitance-fréquence lorsque la MOSCAP est polarisée en positif. Le chapitre 3 présente notre approche pour réaliser un MOSFET en diamant dopé au Bore. Les performances du transistor et ses paramètres importants seront quantifiées. Le benchmark du dispositif et la projection vers son amélioration seront mentionnés. / Nowadays, global warming effect is one of most challenging issue for human being. Most of “traditional energy” sources like thermal power; nuclear power, hydroelectricity power, etc. are dangerous and/or potentially dangerous for nature and human being. Therefore, the "greener energy" is highly desired. The "greener energy" has two folds meaning: on one hand, using renewable energy sources like solar power, wind power or geothermal energy, etc. instead of the traditional energy sources. One another hand, use the electricity more effectively and more efficiency. A recent report has pointed out that the energy loss in US is in fact more than sum of all renewable energy generate in US. Therefore, effectively utilizing electricity and limiting the waste is critical.Unfortunately, losses are the endemic of semiconductor components, the central device of all power conversion system. Silicon (Si), the main material for semiconductor components has reached its physical limit. Wide band-gap semiconductors such as SiC, GaN, Ga2O3 and diamond are promising materials to fabricate the devices low ON-state loss and high OFF-state breakdown voltage. Among them, diamond is an ideal semiconductor for power devices due to its superior physical properties. Recent progresses on diamond technology permits one consider the diamond power devices, e.g. MOSFET.In order to realize a diamond MOSFET by controlled diamond semiconductor, the numbers of issues needed to be overcome is important, especially mastering the diamond/oxide interface. In this context, G. Chicot and A. Marechal (former PhD students in our group) has introduced the O-diamond/Al2O3 MOSCAP test devices and measured the type I band alignment at O-diamond/Al2O3 interface, which is favorable to realize both inversion MOSFET and depletion MOSFET in his PhD these. This PhD project is a continuation of two-mentioned thesis and including two main objects: 1. Fundamental investigations dedicate to understand the electrical characteristic of an O-diamond MOSCAP test device; 2. Realize a unipolar diamond MOSFET by controlling the diamond semiconductor epilayer. The thesis will include three chapters:Chapter 1 discusses the context of power devices as well as the physical properties of diamond and state-of-the-art of diamond devices. We also introduce the working principle of an ideal MOSCAP test device and States-of-the-art of O-diamond MOSCAP test devices.Chapter 2 dedicates for the fundamental understanding O-diamond MOSCAP and include three main parts: Part 1 addresses the methodology issues related to diamond growth, fabrication processing and electrical characterizations. We will construct an empirical electrostatics model for O-diamond MOSCAP. Part 2 discusses the origin of leakage current and capacitance-frequency dependent when O-diamond MOSCAP is biasing in negative direction. We quantify the interface states density at O-diamond/Al2O3 interface by conductance method and the complete electrostatics model for O-diamond/Al2O3 MOSCAP will be constructed. Part 3 discusses the origin of leakage current and the capacitance-frequency dependent when the O-diamond MOS capacitor is biasing in positive direction.Chapter 3 introduces our approach to realize a depletion mode diamond MOSFET. Transistor performance and the important parameters of the transistor will be quantified. The benchmark of the device and the projection towards its improvement will be mentioned.

During development of control systems for power electronic systems, it is desirable to test the controller in real-time, by interfacing it with an emulator device. In this context, this work comprises the development of an emulator that can model accurately the dynamics of high speed power electronic systems and provides interfaces that are compatible with the real hardware. The realtime state calculations, based on discrete models, were performed on custom logic, implemented on an FPGA. The realized system allows to emulate Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) systems, achieving sampling rates up to 12MHz using a low cost Xilinx FPGA. As a result, power electronic systems with very high switching frequencies can be modeled. In addition, the FPGA incorporates a soft-core processor that allows a designer to easily re-configure the system model through software. The emulator system has been validated for a multiphase DC-DC converter, by comparing its results with the real hardware setup.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / There are various types of power electronic converters available in recent days. In some applications (e.g. PC power supply), it is required to supply more than one load from a single power supply. One of the main challenges while designing a power converter is to increase its e ciency especially when the number of power switches employed is relatively large. While several loads are supplied from a single source, if the power loss in the switches cannot be reduced, then the expected utilization of using a single source is not very feasible. To reduce the loss and increase e ciency, the thesis presents a novel design with reduced number of switches. The scope of this thesis is not limited to the dc-dc converter only, the converter to supply three phase ac loads from a single dc source is also presented. This discussion includes an improved fault tolerant configuration of the inverter part. The generated waveforms from the simulations are included as a demonstration of satisfactory results.

No description available.

Interest in wide bandgap semiconductors such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3 ) and diamond has increased due to their ability to deliver high power, high switching frequency and low loss electronic devices for power conversion applications. To meet these requirements, semiconductor material defects, introduced during growth and fabrication, must be minimized. Otherwise, theoretical limits of operation cannot be achieved. In this dissertation, the non-ideal current- voltage (IV) behavior of GaN-based Schottky diodes is discussed first. Here, a new model is developed to explain better the temperature dependent performance typically associated with a multi-Gaussian distribution of barrier heights at the metal-semiconductor interface [Section 3.1]. Application of this model gives researches a means of understanding not only the effective barrier distribution at the MS interface but also its voltage dependence. With this information, the consequence that material growth and device fabrication methods have on the electrical characteristics can be better understood. To show its applicability, the new model is applied to Ru/GaN Schottky diodes annealed at increasing temperature under normal laboratory air, revealing that the origin of excess reverse leakage current is attributed to the low-side inhomogeneous barrier distribution tail [Section 3.2]. Secondly, challenges encountered during MOCVD growth of low-doped GaN drift layers for high-voltage operation are discussed with focus given to ongoing research characterizing deep-level defect incorporation by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and deep level optical spectroscopy (DLOS) [Section 3.3 and 3.4]. It is shown that simply increasing TMGa so that high growth rates (>4 µm/hr) can be achieved will cause the free carrier concentration and the electron mobilities in grown drift layers to decrease. Upon examination of the deep-level defect concentrations, it is found that this is likely caused by an increase in 4 deep level defects states located at E C - 2.30, 2.70, 2.90 and 3.20 eV. Finally, samples where the ammonia molar flow rate is increased while ensuring growth rate is kept at 2 µm/hr, the concentrations of the deep levels located at 0.62, 2.60, and 2.82 eV below the conduction band can be effectively lowered. This accomplishment marks an exciting new means by which the intrinsic impurity concentration in MOCVD-grown GaN films can be reduced so that >20 kV capable devices could be achieved. / Doctor of Philosophy / We constantly rely on electronics to help assist us in our everyday lives. However, to ensure functionality we require that they minimize the amount of energy lost through heat during operation. One contribution to this inefficiency is incurred during electrical power conversion. Examples of power conversion include converting from the 120 V wall outlet to the 5 V charging voltage used by cellphones or converting the fluctuating voltage from a solar panel (due to varying sun exposure) to the 120 V AC power found in a typical household. Electrical circuits can be simply designed to accomplish these conversions; however, consideration to every component must be given to ensure high efficiency. A popular example of an electrical power conversion circuit is one that switches the input voltage on and off at high rates and smooths the output with an inductor/capacitor network. A good analogy of this process is trying to create a small stream of water from a fire hydrant which can either be off or on at full power. Here we can use a small cup but turning the fire hydrant on and trying to fill the cup will destroy it. However, if the fire hydrant is pulsed on and off at very short intervals (1 µs), its possible to fill the cup without damaging it or having it overflow. Now, under ideal circumstances if a small hole is poked in the bottom of the cup and the interval of the fire hydrant is timed correctly, a small low power stream of water is created without overflowing the cup and wasting water. In this analogy, a devices capable of switching the stream of water on and off very fast would need to be implemented. In electrical power conversion circuits this device is typically a transistor and diode network created from a semiconducting material. Here, similar to the fire hydrant analogy, a switch would need to be capable of holding off the immense power when in the off position and not impeding the powerful flow when in the on position. The theoretical limit of these two characteristics is dependent on the material properties of the switch where typically used semiconductors include silicon (Si), silicon carbide (SiC), or gallium nitride (GaN). Currently, GaN is considered to be a superior option over Si or SiC to make the power semiconductor switching device, however research is still required to remove non-ideal behavior that ultimately effects power conversion efficiency. In this work, we first examine the spurious behavior in GaN-based Schottky diodes and effectively create a new model to describe the observed behavior. Next, we fabricated Ru/GaN Schottky diodes annealed at different temperatures and applied the model to explain the room-temperature electrical characteristics. Finally, we grew GaN under different conditions (varying TMGa and ammonia) so that quantum characteristics, which have been shown to affect the overall ability of the device, could be measured.

Wechselrichter im Antriebsstrang von Elektrofahrzeugen verbinden Batterie und Motor miteinander. Bei konventionellen Wechselrichtern ist die Ständerspannung des Fahrmotors durch die Batteriespannung begrenzt. Dies ist vor allem bei hohen Drehzahlen nachteilig, da hier ein zusätzlicher feldschwächender Strom notwendig ist. Dieser Strom wiederum verursacht zusätzliche Verluste in der Maschine und der Leistungselektronik. Einen alternativen Ansatz bieten hochsetzende Wechselrichter. Die Begrenzung der Ständerspannung durch die Batterie entfällt. In der vorliegenden Diplomarbeit werden zwei hochsetzende Wechselrichter miteinander verglichen. Zunächst wird die Funktionsweise des Wechselrichters mit Hochsetzsteller und des ZSource-Wechselrichters erläutert. Danach werden Bauelemente für beide hochsetzende Wechselrichter ausgewählt. Anschließend werden die Verluste und das thermische Verhalten der ausgewählten Konfigurationen analysiert und mit Matlab simuliert. Abschließend werden der Wechselrichter mit Hochsetzsteller und der Z-Source-Wechselrichter bezüglich der Kriterien Wirkungsgrad, Zuverlässigkeit und Fertigungsaufwand miteinander verglichen. / Inverter in the drive train of electric vehicles connect the battery to the machine. Using conventional inverters, the stator voltage is limited by the battery voltage. This is mainly a disadvantage at a high speed, since an additional field weakening current is needed. This current produces extra losses in the electrical machine and the power electronics. DC/DC boosted inverters offer an alternative solution. A limitation of stator voltage through the battery does not occur. This diploma thesis is comparing two kinds of DC/DC boosted inverters. First the functionality of an inverter with boost converter and that of a Z-Sourceinverter are presented. Afterwards the electrical components for both inverters are chosen and are simulated using Matlab. Finally the results of the simulation are compared with respect to power effciency, reliability of the electrical components and the effort of production.

L’intégration des dispositifs électroniques de puissance dans les véhicules automobiles nécessite une connaissance approfondie de leur fiabilité. Ces éléments sont soumis à des contraintes de fatigue électrothermique de plus en plus importantes. Cette étude vise à caractériser l’évolution de composants à base de MOSFET lors de tests de fatigue accélérés et contrôlés afin de déterminer les mécanismes physiques qui conduisent à sa dégradation.Nous décrivons d'abord l’évolution technologique des composants électroniques de puissance jusqu’à la technologie de type SmartMos utilisée par Freescale Semiconductor aujourd'hui. Les outils de caractérisation microstructurale (SAM, SAT, SEM, SIM, TEM, …) sont ensuite détaillés ainsi que l'échelle spécifique pour laquelle ils sont utilisés.Le vieillissement accéléré des composants est effectué sur un banc de fatigue pour déterminer la durée de vie d'un composant selon des paramètres donnés. L'analyse complète des composants détruits a permis de conclure que la zone affectée en priorité par le cyclage électro-thermique est le métal source qui comprend la métallisation en aluminium et les fils d'amenée de courants. Ces mêmes zones sont ensuite examinées après un vieillissement contrôlé correspondant à une fraction de la durée de vie. La fatigue du composant est essentiellement caractérisée par une forte augmentation de la résistance du métal source qui engendre l’augmentation de sa résistance drain-source (RdsON). Nous avons expliqué ce phénomène par une dégradation de la métallisation qui consiste en une division des grains d'aluminium et à l’apparition de fissures le long des joints de grains.Ces caractérisations sont corrélées à une étude par éléments finis (FEM) qui permet de simuler l’augmentation et le gradient de température dans un composant pendant un cycle de vieillissement, ainsi que l’impact de l’élévation de la résistance de la métallisation source sur le comportement thermoélectrique du composant / Integration of power electronic devices in automotive applications requires a perfect knowledge of their reliability as these components are subjected to more drastic electrothermal stresses. This study aims at determining the physical mechanisms responsible for degradation and failure of modern MOSFET-based power microprocessors during accelerated and controlled fatigue tests.After a description of the recent developments in power electronics that led to today's SmartMos technology from Freescale Semiconductor, the different microstructural characterizing techniques (SAM, SAT, SEM, SIM, TEM, …) and the specific scale for which they are used are detailed.The accelerated ageing of the components were carried out on a fatigue bench to evaluate the component lifetime according to parameters such as the temperature, current and pulse durations. A complete analysis of failed components showed that the area which is primarily affected by the electro-thermal cycling is the metal source that includes aluminum metallization and connection wires. In controlled ageing tests, we showed that the drain-source resistance (Rdson) increase was due to the metal source resistance augmentation. This phenomenon is linked to the degradation of the Aluminum layer that happens through grains division and crack propagation along the grain boundaries