Technical trend of power electronics systems for automotive applications

Abstract

Abstract Wide-bandgap semiconductor devices, such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide devices, have attracted great interest in the automotive application area. However, wide-bandgap semiconductor devices are still too expensive to apply in the power electronics system in automotive applications. In this application, the series-connected active power semiconductor device method using low voltage rating power semiconductor devices of power conversion systems is an effective solution for the cost and efficiency problems. However, there exists no discussion about the voltage imbalance phenomenon for series-connected active power semiconductor devices. In this paper, the voltage imbalance phenomenon is analyzed and evaluated using simulation and an experimental setup in the case of a hard-switching DC–DC converter and a soft-switching one suitable for automotive applications.