A 50 kW IGBT power module for automotive applications with extremely low DC-link inductance

A power module for hybrid electric vehicles is designed and constructed applying innovative packaging technologies. Instead of a DCB (direct copper bond) substrate and bond wire connections PCB (printed circuit board) technologies with embedded power semiconductors are used to build a 50kW automotive drive train inverter (Power PCB). The PCB technologies enable the design of very flat, compact and low-inductive power modules. The thermal performance of these modules is comparable to conventional DCB solutions. The built Power PCB is proven to be far superior compared to an equivalent bond wire solution in terms of switching performance. In fact, the parasitic dc-link inductance can be drastically reduced from 15:4nH (standard) down to 2:8nH (Power PCB). Thereby, the turn-off overvoltages are decreased significantly. Consequently, the switching losses are reduced and also conduction losses can be potentially reduced by an optional increase of the dc-link voltage. Thereby, the energy efficiency of electric vehicles can be substantially enhanced.