Reliability Considerations for Parallel Performance of Semiconductor Switches in High-Power Switching Power Supplies

Author

Abdi, Babak ; Ranjbar, Amir Hossein ; Gharehpetian, Gevorg B. ; Milimonfared, Jafar

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Islamic Azad Univ. of Damavand, Damavand

Volume

56

Issue

6

fYear

2009

fDate

6/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2133

Lastpage

2139

Abstract

In order to ensure increasing current rating of semiconductor switches, paralleling is unavoidable. In this paper, the paralleling of switches has been studied from the reliability point of view. A prototype 4-kW boost converter has been used for this paper. In this boost converter, five insulated gate bipolar transistors are paralleled per switch in order to increase the current rating. Based on experimental results, the reliability of converter has been calculated. Results of reliability calculations showed that paralleling switches extremely decreases reliability of DC-DC converters. The same converter has been constructed by using an integrated power module (IPM). The same calculations have been repeated for the IPM-based converter. The comparison of the results shows that the case of IPM in converters can increase the reliability of the circuit.

Keywords

DC-DC power convertors; insulated gate bipolar transistors; power bipolar transistors; power semiconductor switches; semiconductor device reliability; switched mode power supplies; switching convertors; DC-DC converter; IPM-based converter; boost converter; high-power switching power supply; insulated gate bipolar transistor; integrated power module; power 4 kW; semiconductor switch reliability; Boost converter; integrated power module (IPM); paralleling; reliability;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0278-0046

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TIE.2009.2014306

Filename

4776502