Course info

Welcome to Modern Power Semiconductors and their Packaging

 

Description: The main component of modern Power Electronics circuits is the semiconductor power switch. This course presents the fundamentals of Power Switches operations from a physical point of view, together with the specific peculiarities and the reason to use them in a special application. An overview on different packaging technologies and their properties, advantages and disadvantages, is also given. Requirements from the applications and possibilities to tackle them with a semiconductor package solution will be proposed.

Part I) semiconductor theory

This part aims to give an understanding of semiconductor power switch operations. A preliminary introduction to the PN junction and fundamentals of bipolar junction and field-effect transistors will be given. Then, a comparison between traditional semiconductor technologies, like Silicon, and emerging technologies like GaN and SiC will follow. Successively, referring to MOSFETs and IGBTs, several details about the structure of the elementary cell will be introduced together with the explanation of the fundamental mechanisms taking place during operations, like the Miller plateau, voltage/current overshoot and voltage/current tail. An overview of abnormal operations, like unclamped inductive switching (UIS) and short circuit, together with typical unstable phenomenon like current crowding and thermal runaway, will be also discussed. Finally, modern driving strategies, including two-level turn off and anti-desaturation will be introduced.

Part II) packaging theory                            

This part aims to introduce, analyze and discuss packaging techniques for modern semiconductor power switches. The present challenges in terms of power density, stray inductance and resistance, and reliability issues will be broadly discussed from a physics point of view, together with several sample applications. Modern interconnection solutions will be presented together with the research challenges in the field of power electronics packaging like copper bond wires, low-profile packaging, bondless packaging, etc.

Task: The participants will be grouped and asked to team work on a real design. A final 1-day lecture is included where groups will compare and deeply discuss the achievements and the design choices.

Prerequisites: basic knowledge of circuit theory

Organizer: Professor Francesco Iannuzzo, email: fia@et.aau.dk, Aalborg University

Lecturers: Professor Eckart Hoene, Fraunhofer IZM; Professor Francesco Iannuzzo, Aalborg University, Professor Kjeld Pedersen, Aalborg Universitet, Professor Vladimir Popok, Aalborg University

ECTS: 3

Price: 6000 DKK for PhD students outside of Denmark and 1500 DKK for PhD students in Denmark, who are not from AAU. 8000 DKK for the Industry.

Time: 11 December - 13 December 2017

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Number of seats: 30

Deadline: 29 November 2017

 

Important information concerning PhD courses We have over some time experienced problems with no-show for both project and general courses. It has now reached a point where we are forced to take action. Therefore, the Doctoral School has decided to introduce a no-show fee of DKK 5,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately three months before start. This can hopefully also provide new students a chance to register for courses during the year. We look forward to your registrations.