DESCRIPTION AND RELIABILITY OF A 100KW DC/DC CONVERTER INVOLVING IGBTs IN A TO247 PACKAGE AT AN OUTPUT VOLTAGE OF 200 VOLTS TO 200

KILOVOLTS
Oleg Eric ANITOFF, Dr. PhD1 1 : Independent Consulting Engineer PhD ;Oleg-Eric.Anitoff.72@normalesup.org

; of 330 Volts),and the previous unreliability of power high voltage Abstract.A power DC/DC converter is described, which achieves ceceramic capacitors and unreliable operation under fault and of A unitary DC power of 25 kilowatts with 16 IGBTs of the 4th ararcs of the power components have been successfully generation in the economical TO247 plastic package disposed as a resolved.This was achieved by using firing frequency modulated H bridge, from a DC power line of 550 Volts, which could be sssoft switching instead of hard switching, which reduces losses extended to 660 Volts. Two such bridges of 25kW can be aaand permits a halt within one microsecond in case of faults.The duplexed in phase with a duplexer power transformer to 50 kW, aiaim of such high voltage and very high voltage power converters and two duplexes of 50kW can be further combined out-of-phase coconcerns many areas of high power advanced technology,for with a power reactor to 100kW.Three classes of design have been exexample : considered : C1)electron beam welding under high vacuum( 45 to 60kV, 20kW 1)output voltage between 200 Volts and 8 kilovolts,with air Aand above) and possible future application of high power insulation elelectron beam devices. 2)output voltage between 8 kilovolts and 60 kilovolts, with oil or 2)2)high power laser applications(under 20 to 50 kV) solid dielectric insulation T/3)high power neutron generators,which are to be operated above 3)output voltage between 60 kilovolts and 200 kilovolts, with 16160kV(the threshold for neutron generation being 60kV). composite solid dielectric insulation only. 4)4)high power X-ray tubes, from 20kV upwards,at any power. This DC/DC converter involves an optimization of the stored energy to achieve the best trade-off between the RMS ripple at full load and the limitation of faulty transients. This sets the main pole 2.Principle of Operation in Soft Switching resulting from the high voltage rectifiers and capacitors near 150 Figure 1 :Basic Structure of the DC/DC Hertz, as demonstrated by a direct measurement set-up. Power Converter It is fully protected against arcs, faults and short-circuits, and involves an analog PID regulator with its main pole near 10 Hertz. The reliability at full power has been estimated from continuous operation near 38C(100F), and the maximum operation INVERTER made of LINE SUPPLY temperature is estimated to 45C with this set of components. OPTODRIVEN 500 to 650 Volts H-BRIDGES Keywords.high-voltage, DC supply, 25 to 100kW power,IGBT Of parallel connected IGBTs 1.Introduction Previous experiments were performed 22 years ago under contract with the CNRS and ANVAR, while in duty at the Centre dEtudes Nucleaires de Saclay, to design high voltage generators for the supply of lasers (nitrogen and nitrogen pumped dyes) and X-ray tubes at the INEL company. The technologies involved were fast thyristors, still in use because they are simple to trigger and highly fault tolerant, and 15Amp GTOs and 30 or 50 Amp bipolar modules which have become obsolete since that time.The power level achieved was then 3kW. New involution of the 4th generation of IGBTs from I.R. has since enabled the reliable achievement of 25 kW to 100kW power levels, with twice the previous line supply( up to 660 Volts instead
Low Voltage Supply Current and Voltage PID regulation Fault Sensors & Drivers PRIMARY PULSE FORMING NETWORK

POWER TRANSFORMER(S) & COMBINER / DUPLEXER POWER RECTIFIERS VOLTAGE DIVIDER & CURRENT SENSE & FAULT DETECTION

The full structure is to be powered from a 500 to 650 Volts line, because this is optimized with the present fast generation of IGBTs, for the following reasons : 1)although 1700 Volts devices and high power hybrid modules exist,the aim of this work was to prove the reliability and high power capacity of economical devices packaged in the plastic TO247 package.Although 1200 Volt devices are common,a new device of the 4th generation made by International Rectifier,the IRG4PF50W, was used.This is a 900 Volts /28 Amp continuous at Tj=100C/ device, and such a device is to be used at a 20% derating according to common rules, hence 720 Volts,further derated of 10% to 650 Volts. 2)as will be demonstrated in this paper, our DC/DC unit works with a peak current of 180 Amperes per arm, and a mean RMS current of about 58 Amperes during on-time. This requires 4 IGBTs in parallel,with no special selection.However, a simple selection of the on state voltage at, say, 50 Amperes pulsed current, would improve reliability(as not selecting the devices, although from the same batch, involves a derating of 25 to 30% in peak working current) Each gate is driven from 15 Volts to + 15 Volts through a 12 ohms gate resistors, the driver being able to supply +/- 4 Amperes peak at 200 mA mean current for each group, hence a maximum low voltage DC power of 24 Watts for the 4 phase optoisolated driver of each 25kW power unit. The fast optoisolators must work at 10M or 20Mbits/s. Each group of 4 IGBTs is associated to a single 30 Amperes fast free-wheeling diode,in the same package. 3.General Principle and Function of the Primary Pulse Forming Network. The power losses in the commutators of our converter are,after the limitation in line voltage and peak and RMS current defined above, the main limitation to the converted DC power. There are two main termes to be considered : 1)power losses during conduction. This is the product of the on-state voltage Vbe and the mean current Ice,multiplied by the duty cycle factor n. Pon # Vce(Ice) . Ice . n [1] The IGBTs are preferred over MOSFETs at frequencies below 100kHz, because the saturation voltage Vce(Ice), being the saturation voltage of a PNP structure,is about half of that of a MOSFET at the same current density,or,another way,the MOSFET requires twice the die size of that of an IGBT at the same power level,hence at least twice as expensive. In the present set-up,the mean Vce at nominal mean current is about 2V4, and the maximum duty cycle n about 0,45 (including a dead time),hence a on power dissipation per assembly of 4 IGBTs of about 60 Watts, for which an adequate cooling must be accounted for. It will be further shown that the maximum temperature and frequency of operation is limited by thermal runaway below

the ordinary static maximum junction temperature, as demonstrated in reference(1). 2)There is however a drawback of IGBTs, since the turn off of the PNP structure cannot rely on external minority carrier extraction(for lack of access to the base equivalent of the PNP structure),but only on its recombination with defects. The carrier recombination life time was so high in the first generation of devices that their hard commutation at full power was limited to frequencies of a few kilohertz,due to the high tail losses resulting from the reapplication of the full Vce voltage during the remaining recombination current. The remedy to tail losses seems to be a suitable irradiation with neutrons or protons, which increases the defect density required for recombination. With the so called 4th generation devices,the tail lasts less than 4,5 microseconds, hence the device can be soft switched at up to 100kHz,as the tail current occurs during the free wheeling half quasi-sinusod,during which the Vce voltage is reverse clamped by the free wheeling diode and the freewheeling current is returned to the line supply(or stored in a bank of caoacitors) 3)there is actually a 3rd cause of power losses,when the commutator is hard turned off,at low load,to keep the regulation down to zero power output.This will not be discussed further,although some guidelines will be shown in the paragraph concerning the regulation. Figure2 : Structure of the Pulse Forming Network + DC LINE

C1

LRES

P R I M A

-DC LINE

In this figure, the inverter unit, powered from the +DC secondary.Additionnal air core inductance can be added in order to And DC lines,is represented without the freewheeling resonate with C1 near 95kHz(or maybe slightly higher if an IGBT diodes,whose function is straightforward. faster than the IRG5PF50W were available). In each arm, the upper transistor is commanded in phase with the The following figure represents the peak current,RMS lower transistor of the other arm,with simple circuits involving fastcurrent,frequency of operation and coefficient of peaking Q in a fast optoisolators and complementary push-pulls or small outline practical inverter operated at 20kW from a 550 Volts line MOSFETs delivering +/- 4 amperes(for 300ns). It is also possible to use level-shifted half-bridge drivers such ass When the IGBTs are turned on, C1 begins to charge with the IR2113 made by International Rectifier,with two restrictions resonnance involving the leakage inductance of the primary 1)the peak current is unsufficient from driving 4 power IGBTs,andOf the power transformer, at 95kHz. the circuit must therefore be buffered The mean DC input Pdc to the inverter is the product of the 2)the supply voltage is limited to 80% of 600 Volts.However,a new RMS current Ir to the RMS voltage U,the RMS current new circuit exists,with a higher operating voltage. being related to the peak current Ipeak with a filling factor The Pulse Forming Network consists in two parts : k,which takes into account both the dead time and the 1)The series blocking resonant circuit,made of LRES and C2. limited extraction of energy from the second half-sinusod It is tuned at the lower operating frequency of the inverter,which isOf the resonnant current : set to 16kHz in order to be just slightly above the audible frequency range for the human ear,in order that the inverter produces no Pdc= U Ir [5] audible sound. For a 25kW bridge,the inductance LRES is made of four pairs of Ir = k Ipeak/1.4 [6] E65 3C85 cores,either in parallel or is series,to achieve a peaking coefficient of about 3 to 5 at the frequency of resonance,LRES With k = 0,45 to 0,7 in some cases,discussed later being made of stranded wires able to carry 60Amperes RMS,and the cores having a gap of 1 to 3 mm. Figure3 :Practical Measurement of a 20kW Unit The power dissipated in the cores is always well below what can be achieved with a little forced air cooling,and I wont enter further PEAK CURRENT 170Amp details of this straightforward matter,but to recall three basic AAAmpere equations which are needed if one needs to further optimize this matter : The power dissipated in a ferrite core made of 3C85 is given by P(3C85)= 6,85 Vf F^1,3 B^2 [2] Where :P is the dissipated power in Watts Vf the volume of the ferrite core in dm^3 F the frequency in kilohertz B the peak induction is Tesla (saturation near 0,35T) Or,otherwise stated : P(3C85)=6,85 F^1,3 s lf /(e+lf/ur)^2 .(uni)^2 [3] Where s , e and lf are the core parameters(section,gap,field line length),n is the number of turns,ur is the relative permeability At the RMS induction,and u is the permeability of vacuum in S.I. S.I. units Last,I have deduced from documents the following empirical relation for the thermal resistance by convection cooling of usual cores : Rth= 600 / S cm^2.K/W [4] 100kHz

Frequency

C2

PEAKING COEFFICIENT
Q^2=Ipeak/1,4FCVeff Q= 3 with Veff=380Volts F= 95kHz C=360nF/3600VS/110AmpRMS (made of 15 capacitors )

Where S is the section in square centimeters for usual E cores. Application is straightforward. 2)the series resonant circuit,made of the capacitor C1 and the leakage inductance of the primary of the power transformer,which may be mesured with a LCR meter while short-circuiting the 16kHz