Macro-Trend and A Future Expectation of Innovations in Power Electronics and Power Devices

H. Shigekane*, T. Fujihira*, K. Sasagawa**, Y. Seki*, Y. Takahashi%, and A. Takai* Electric Device Technology Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan *Fu~ji Fuji Electric Advanced Technology Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Abstract-The improvement of power conversion efficiency is important for preventing global warming and for protecting global environment. Expecting the direction of future innovations in this field is also important and effective. Macro-trend of innovations in power electronics and power devices are reviewed to derive two laws of innovations in this field. According to these laws, an expectation to future innovation of power electronics, PDM technology using soft switching of SiC or GaN devices at high frequency, is presented.
1. INTRODUCTION

innovations of this field is very important and effective. In the present paper, macro-trend of innovations in power electronics and power devices are reviewed to derive two laws of innovations in this field. According to the two laws, an expectation to future innovation of power electronics and power devices are presented.
11. MACRO-TREND OF INNOVATIONS

As 30 to 40% of the world primary energy is consumed for electricity generation and as this share is forecasted to continue increasing, power electronics and power devices are key technologies for reducing CO2 emission to prevent global warming and to protect global environment. Year by year, the power conversion efficiency and the cost of power electronic systems have been being improved. However, innovative improvements, or innovations, of power electronic systems have not been introduced so often. Therefore, to expect the direction of future
TABLE 1.

There have been a number of innovations introduced in power electronics. For example, the industrial use of PAM (Power Amplitude Modulation) and PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) have introduced great advancements of the motor drive and of the motion control technologies, and, then, have contributed to the progress of the modem industrialized society. For example, the industrial use of resonant circuits or matrix-converters have greatly improved the power conversion efficiency in induction heating and in power supply or in elevator control. Reviewing these innovations in power electronics, the authors have find two guiding laws that can be used to study future expectations of power electronics.

THE TREND OF POWER DEVICES AND POWER ELECTRONICS EQUIPMIENTS

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The First Law of Innovations in Power Electronics The first law of innovations in power electronics we would like to present is that the innovation of power electronics occurs together with the innovation of power devices. TABLE I shows the trend of power devices and power electronic equipments [1]. Since the advent of thyristors as power devices in the 1960s, power electronics had made rapid progress. Thyristors can be turned on at any time, but cannot be turned off by gate control. Thyristors, therefore, applied to rectifiers, DC motor drives, and so on. The circuit topology shown in Fig. I had applied for a part of a variable speed drive system for AC motors. The DC-link voltage, Ed, can be controlled by the thyristors and an output voltage having a rectangular shape is obtained by the inverter. Therefore, PAM can be achieved. Since commutation circuit (CC) is required for turning off the thyristors, the circuit configuration is complicated. Emerging of self turn-off device, which, can meet the requirement of the advanced control applications, for example, variable speed control drives of AC motors and uninterrupted power systems, was expected. Transistors, which were mainly used for the small signal amplifier, were focused. Through the research of semi-conductor physics and the innovation of the manufacturing technology, the transistor was changed to the power transistor for the switching use. Power electronics have been rapidly developing since power transistors, which have been commercialized in the 1970's, were used. Fig. 2 shows the typical circuit topology [2]. A constant DC-link voltage is obtained by the diode bridge rectifier and an AC power is output from the voltage source inverter. The inverter controls the amplitude and the frequency of the output voltage by PWM control. PWM control is widely employed in power electronics equipments and controllability for voltage, current, and frequency is greatly improved. Micro-controllers and modern control theories are applied in the control unit and use of digital control technologies are dramatically increased. On the other hand, isolated
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modules for power transistors have been developed and packaging technology have been rapidly changed. This brings that main circuits are simplified and the volume is reduced. The switching frequency of such power transistors can be limited within a few kHz, resulting in occurring undesirable magnetic sounds. To overcome such an issue, a new type of power devices, IGBT (Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor), has been developed. The device has specific characteristics of high-speed switching and tremendous low drive power due to having combination structure of a MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) and transistor. The IGBT has been improved rapidly year after year, and some have achieved to have considerably high voltage and high current rating as almost same as those of GTOs (Gate Turn-Off Thyristor) for an alternative device to thyristors. Hence, the IGBT has been playing an important role for various kinds of power electronics equipments rather than the others these days. Until now, the trade-off relationship between the onstate voltage and the switching loss of the IGBTs has been improved. However, it is said that such performance improvement is close to the theoretical limit. Therefore, technological development will advance to the function improvement than the performance improvement in the future. One of the function improvements is that an IGBT possesses reverse-blocking voltage capability. This type of the IGBT is called RB-IGBT (Reverse-Blocking IGBT). Now, RB-IGBTs, with 600V blocking voltage have been commercialized, and by using these IGBTs several type of matrix converters which is able to directly convert to AC voltage and frequency without a DC-link voltage (cf. Fig. 3), have been developed [3]. In the future, the blocking voltage and the current rating of RB-IGBTs should be improved. These RB-IGBTs enable bidirectional switching, and they are approaching to an ideal switch. This progress of the power device technology will expand the possibility of various converters, such as AC-AC direct converters and current source converters.

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in I10kW- to I 00kW-order applications in kHz-order, and in more than 1MW applications in I00Hz-order, roughly. On the other hand, many researchers and engineers focus on not only PWM control but also resonant circuits. At the beginning, resonant circuits have been developed for the particular applications such as IH (Induction Heating) inverters, and now are widely used in low power applications such as switching power supplies. As an example, a resonant DC-DC converter is depicted in Fig. 4. In this circuit, MOSFETs are switching at zero voltage, so switching loss is reduced. Accordingly, a high frequency switching and low noise are realized. Moreover, the power IC such as M-power, where MOSFETs and a control IC are integrated in a package, is also developed [4]. The output power of resonant IH inverters and resonant DCDC converter has been increasing. In the future, resonant circuits would also be developed for high power and high frequency applications. I1l. A FuTURE EXPECTATION OF INNOVATIONS

B.

The Second Law of Innovations in Power Electronics Furthermore, the second law of innovations in power electronics we would like to present is that the innovation of power electronics occurs in relatively low power applications and that it is extended to high power applications. For example, technologies of PAM or PWM control had been established in low power applications. Then, these technologies were expanded to higher and higher power applications supported by the development of higher power devices, in case of PAM, by the development of higher-current and higher-voltage thyristors, and, in case of PWM, by the development of higher-current and higher-voltage transistors, IGBTs, GTOs, and GCTs (Gate Commutated Turn-off Thyristors). Today, the application area of PWM has already extended as high as 100MW class. The increase of switching carrier frequency in PWM has also been led in low power applications and has been extended to high power applications. Recently, the carrier frequency in 10OW-order applications is in MHz-order, in 100OW-order applications in I 00k~z-order, in kW-order applications in I 0kHz-order,

A. Next GenerationPower Devices Before addressing future expectations of innovations in power electronics, we should have identified the next generation power devices according to the first law of innovations in power electronics. As everybody knows, next generation power devices will be SiC (Silicon Carbide) or GaN (Gallium Nitride) devices because, as seen form Fig. 5, the conduction loss of SiC or GaN devices could be less than 1/100 of Si MOSFET and as low as 1/10 of Si IGBT. Diode had enabled the rectification. Thyristor had enabled the controlled turn-on. Transistor, UTO, and GCT had enabled the controlled turn-off. MOSFET and IGBT have enabled high switching carrier frequency. Then, what SiC or GaN devices will enable? The authors expect that they will enable very high carrier frequency, 10 to 100 times as high as that of MOSFET or IGBT of the same output power. SiC SBD (Schottky Barrier Diode) are already used in some limited applications in the market, for example in

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the PFC (Power Factor Control Circuit) of blade servers in data centers. SiC MOSFET and GaN SBD have already been announced very close to enter the market. However, there is almost no announcement for full SiC or GaN power devices to be applied to real market use. The reasons why these devices seem not to be applied to real market use are very high cost and high current and thermal densities. Especially because of very high cost, there will be almost no approval in the market if MOSFET or IGBT will be simply replaced by SiC or GaN devices in the existing power electronic equipments. The key for SiC or GaN devices to be accepted in the market will be the change or the innovation of power electronics to achieve certain advantage that compensate very high cost of these devices. Very high carrier frequency to be realized by these devices can be the origin of the innovation. B. An Expectation of Innovation The social and market requirements to power electronic equipments and systems are low loss, high preciseness,' low price, low emission, and low weight and volume. State-of-the-art AC-AC power conversion topology is DC-link sinusoidal PWM using hard switching of IGBT or MOSFET. In this type of systems, switching noise is very large and, then, carrier frequency is limited. Especially in medium to high power systems using IGHT, the carrier frequency is limited to as low as several to several ten's of kHz. Because of the limited carrier frequency, output filters of this type of systems are large and high cost. Because of very large switching noise, switching speed of the device is suppressed resulted in high switching loss. Because of very large switching noise, input filters and noise suppressing components are large and high cost. The authors' expectation of innovation in near future power electronics is in this type of systems. What will happen if PDM (Pulse Density Modulation) technology using soft switching, for example resonant zero-voltageswitching, of SiC or GaN devices with 10 to 100 times higher carrier frequency is applied to DC-link AC-AC power conversions? The weight, volume, and cost of output and input filters, and of noise suppression components will be greatly reduced. It may compensate the very high cost of SiC or GaN power devices. The loss of the converter will be greatly reduced because the conduction loss of SiC or GaN devices is very low and

because the switching loss of SiC or GaN devices is also very low in soft switching applications. The PDM technologies using soft switching were tried previously, for example in ref. [51, but they were not accepted in the market at that moment. The reason why they were not accepted was because Si devices, for example IGBT, were used for switching devices, so that the carrier frequency could not be increased enough and also that the switching loss was large. In the near future, these problems will be resolved by using SiC or GaN devices. The expected innovation, introduction of PDM, technology using soft switching, seems to be feasible according to the first law of innovations because the innovation of the device, the introduction of SiC or GaN devices, will support the innovation of power electronics. The total advantages of the new device, low conduction loss and high carrier frequency, will be fully converted to the system advantages, low loss and low noise. According to the second law of innovations in power electronics, it also seems feasible. Resonant soft switching technologies are already widely used in low power applications and we have enough experiences to extend them to higher power applications. PDM technology may look like new. However, PDM has already been being used in telecommunication area as signal transmitting technology up to very high carrier frequency. The Key to The Expected Innovation The authors have pointed out several disadvantages of SiC and GaN devices in the section III A. The high cost issue of the devices may be compensated by the reduction of passive components cost. However the remaining issues, high current and high thermal densities, must be resolved at the device side. In SiC or GaN dies, the current density will be several times higher than that of IGBT at the top side electrode and the thermal density also several times higher at the bottom side. To maintain the reliability and the lifetime of the device at elevated temperature, Aluminum wire bonding technology cannot be used for full SiC or GaN power modules and the thermal resistance from the die to the cooling fin must be reduced several times. Key technology to resolve top side issue will be lead flame interconnection [6] as shown in Fig. 6. By using lead flame interconnection, current density at the top side electrode of the die can be maintained as the same level as today's IGBT. Adding to this, the conduction of heat through the lead flame reduces the heating up of the die surface as shown in Fig. 7. Key technologies to resolve bottom side issue are DCB (Direct Copper Bonding) substrate and die arrangement. For DCB, insulation materials with higher thermal conductivity and thicker Copper foil should be introduced. Die arrangement on DCB will be more important. The thermal interventions between neighboring dies must be avoided and the heat spreading from the bottom of dies should be designed larger. For maintaining reliability at elevated temperature, improvement of the solder between die and DCB and between die and lead flame will be required [7]. An example is shown in Fig. 8, where the tensile strength of the solder at elevated temperature has been greatly improved by changing the additive components to Tin based solders. C.

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and based on the recognition that next generation power devices will be SiC or GaN, an expectation of coming innovation in power electronics has relatively low power applications and that it is extended to high power applications. According to the two laws of been presented. PDM technology using resonant soft switching of SiC or GaN devices is expected to be introduced to DC-link ACAC converters. By increasing carrier frequency 10 to 100 times higher than today's PWM using hard switching of IGBT or MOSFET, PDM using soft switching of SiC or GaN devices will be feasible to compensate high device cost by reduced passive components cost with reduced loss and noise. The key to realize this expected innovation will be advancement of packaging technologies, for example lead flame interconnection, DCB, die arrangement, solder, and so on. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The data and drawings of this paper are provided by the members of Electron Device Lab, Fuji Electric Device Technology Co., Ltd. and by the members of Electronics Technology Lab, Fuji Electric Advanced Technology Co., Ltd.
REFERENCES [11 [21 H. Shigekane, et al., "Developments in modem high power semiconductor devices," Proc of Int. Symp. on Power Semicon. Devices and /Cs, 1993, pp. 16-21. T. Tsukahara et al., "FRENIC 5000 series power transistor PWM type VVVF inverter," Fuji Electric Journal, vol. 55. No.10, 1982, pp. 15-21. 1.Sato et al., "Technologies for practical motor drive system with matrix converter," Procoqfint. Symp. on Power Semicon. Devices' and i10, 2008. H. Ota et al. ,"Soft-switching type multiple-chip power device (M-Power) ," Proc. ofIni.Symp. on Power Semicon Devices and 10~, 2001, pp. 373-376. D. M. Divan, G. Venkataramanan, and R. W. De Doncker, "Design Methodologies for Soft Switched Inverters," IEEE-lAS Annual Conference Records, 1988, pp. 758-766. M.Honio, et al, "Investigations of High Temperature IGBT Module Package Structure," Proceedings ofPCIM Europe, 2007. M.Otsuki, et al, "Advanced thin wafer ICRTs with new thermal management solution," Proc. of Int. Symp. Power Semicon. Devices and I1s, 2003, pp. 144-147,

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IV. CONCLUSIONS Macro-trend of innovations in power electronics and power devices has been reviewed to derive two laws of innovation of this field. The first law derived is that the innovation of power electronics occurs together with the innovation of power devices. The second law derived is that the innovation of power electronics occurs in innovation,

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