Forum
Discussion Sessions
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Low
power devices
(Session organisers: P. Aloïsi, Professor, France;
Herbert Kabza, Technische Universität Ulm, Germany)
Chamber Music Hall
Since
40 years of semiconductors for power electronic a lot of
improvements have been done; it seems that it is time to take
bearings and to see what will be the future of these devices.
Bipolar is not implemented in new applications so that it is out
of the scope.
The ugly duck of power electronic called PIN diode is still a
main problem for designers because of reverse recovery time and
noise and, even that, we do not see a real improvement in this
device.
Silicon Schottky is on low voltage the market with a good
reliability but applications must be under 150V.
New materials are coming: GaAs, SiC, diamond, they can be used
until 600V and more than 400°C. But what can be expected from
these new devices as Schottky, PIN diodes, MOS or IGBT?
Power Mosfet has today a lot of applications in automotive and
telecom market, (also low voltage). Since a few years a new idea
for voltages in between 200V to 1000V seems to come:
“Coolmos” can divide the Rdson
of these devices by a factor around 5, that means it can compete
with IGBT in this medium voltage region.
IGBT is now about a mature product, fast and robust. It is used
for about all applications from 600V to 6,3kV. Is it something
new in this arena?
There are a lot of integrated power devices on the market. More
and more products are coming because of easier mounting, better
reliability and integrated knowledge.
What about packaging, surface mount to pressed packages for
better reliability mainly in thermal fatigue or for high
temperature?
So all of these aspects will be debated between participants
(design engineers, semiconductors makers, managers, marketing or
university people) during this forum.
Distributed
generation and its effects on a future supply grid
(Session organisers: W. Leonhard, M. Crappe)
Casineum Hall
Panel members: M. Crappe, L. Gertmar, A. Haböck, W. Leonhard, A. Rufer, T. Undeland
The integration of Renewables Energies and Distributed Generation in energy supply systems has been identified as a Target Action of the Energy RTD Programme of the European Commission. This Traget Action will stimulate joint European efforts, adressing the intense symbiotic interactions of new energy technologies, its social acceptability and economic demand. The combination of new and renewables energy technologies with advanced conversion and storage systems, making full use of new developments in systems engineering, information and communication technologies and electronics, should result in new approaches to manage and operate the energy networks of the future. The objectives of the round table is an open discussion on the integration of renewables energy sources and the penetration of decentralised generation in the the liberalised markets within next decades.
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SiC-based
devices (Technology, trends, applications, etc.)
(Session organiser: J. Millan, CNM, Spain)
Chamber Music Hall
SiC power semiconductor devices are expected to have better performance than that of Si devices due to SiC's superior electrical and physical properties. Recently, SiC diodes have been developed which drastically reduce the swithcing losses and are ideal as freewheeling diodes. SiC FETs have been also fabricated with performance exceeding the theoretical limit of the Si FETs. Therefore, an open session to discuss the challenges of those devices will be of interest for EPE' attendants.
Electric
drives - trends : normalisation or integration
(Session organisers: M. Jufer, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland,
Jürgen Reinert, Emotron, Sweden)
Casineum Hall
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High Power Devices
(Session organiser: R. De Doncker)
Stefanie Hall
Simulation Packages
(Robert Nilssen)
Chamber Music Hall
Web-Based Power
Electronics Education
(Session organiser: J. Kolar, ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
Casineum Hall
Using new media and information technologies in the classroom cannot only make studying more attractive to students, but might also make teaching much easier. Especially in the field of power electronics the description of the dynamic behavior of a system or of a sequence of converter conduction states is difficult based on just static schematics. Here interactive simulation and animation does help a lot (see: www.ipec.ethz.ch). In the session a Novel Interactive Basic Course on Power Electronics as developed at the Power Electronic Systems Laboratory at the ETH Zurich will be presented. The discussion should provide an evaluation of the approach, and identify directions of a further development as well as additional topics to be included. In return a copy of the course material and of future updates will be available in electronic form to all session participants at no costs.
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