Design and Implementation of a Modular Bidirectional Switch Using SiC-MOSFET for Power Converter Applications

Hindawi Active and Passive Electronic Components Volume 2018, Article ID 4198594, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4198594 Research Article Design and Implementation of a Modular Bidirectional Switch Using SiC-MOSFET for Power Converter Applications Edgar Maqueda ,1 Jorge Rodas ,1 Sergio Toledo,2 Raúl Gregor,1 David Caballero,1 Federico Gavilan,1 and Marco Rivera2 1 2 Laboratory of Power and Control Systems, Facultad de Ingenierı́a, Universidad Nacional de Asunción, Luque, Paraguay Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Power Electronics, Universidad de Talca, Curicó, Chile Correspondence should be addressed to Edgar Maqueda; Received 31 May 2018; Revised 10 September 2018; Accepted 17 September 2018; Published 8 October 2018 Academic Editor: Michele Riccio Copyright © 2018 Edgar Maqueda et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The bidirectional switch (Bi-Sw) is a power device widely used by power conversion systems. This paper presents a novel modular design of a Bi-Sw with the purpose of providing to beginner researchers the key issues to design a power converter. The Bi-Sw has been designed in modular form using the SiC-MOSFET device. The Bi-Sw uses the advantages of SiC-MOSFET to operate at high switching frequencies. The verification of the module is carried out experimentally by means of the implementation in a voltage regulating converter, where performance analysis, power losses, and temperature dissipation are performed. 1. Introduction The bidirectional switches (Bi-Sws), also known as fourquadrant switches, can block positive or negative voltages as well as drive currents in any direction [1, 2]. At present, their cost is high, since they are manufactured to measure depending on the application. The use of Bi-Sws is mainly demanded by power converters. Power converters using Bi-Sw include alternating voltage regulators, voltage source inverters (VSI) [3], converters with back-to-back power storage units [4], and multiples topologies of direct and indirect matrix converters found in the literature [5–8], topics that are of great interest to researchers today. Depending on the aforementioned applications, the Bi-Sws are demanded in different quantities and electrical characteristics. Therefore, a modular Bi-Sw that meets certain electrical and elementary criteria would lead to a contribution of value aimed at researchers who wish to carry out an experimental implementation in power converters. The Bi-Sw is formed by two main components which are the power semiconductor and the power semiconductor gate driver [9]. Semiconductors used to construct the power circuit in applications such as matrix converters include MOSFETs for low power and high switching frequency applications, semiconductors such as the gate deflection thyristor (GTO), the switching thyristor (IGCT), and MOS deviation thyristor (MTO) for higher power applications but with switching frequency limitations [10]. Nowadays the most used semiconductors in power converters are IGBTs, silicon Si-MOSFET, and silicon carbide SiC-MOSFETs [11– 14], where the semiconductor with SiC technology takes advantage in relation to other technologies as Si-IGBT and RB-IGBTs in reference to power losses, dissipated temperature, and switching frequency operating high power and high switching frequencies [15, 16]. The controllers of the power semiconductor gates are found in research papers formed by push-pull circuits coupled with a previous stage of isolation by means of optocouplers. These circuits present the least cost whereas they need several active components, as transistors, to amplify the control signal generally of about 3 V–5 V to 15 V–20 V [17], and composite gate chips (ICs) of MOSFETs and IGBTs with dual outputs, overcurrent detection, and separation between feeds that can be logic, optical, through optocouplers and capacitive type [18]. The advantage of these ICs is that they reduce the physical size of the active components of the circuit in a single chip because the control functions of the power semiconductors are standard. To improve performance of power converters, it is very important to use Bi-Sw with characteristics that approximate 2 Active and Passive Electronic Components (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 1: Topologies of the Bi-Sw (a) diode bridge with an IGBT arrangement, (b) anti-paralleled reverse blocking IGBTs (RBIGBT) arrangement, (c) common emitter (CE) anti-paralleled IGBT arrangement, and (d) common collector (CC) anti-paralleled IGBT arrangement. the ideals, which is why technological advances in power semiconductors and gate controllers favor the construction of better power switches, since these are the main components that compose them [19]. The main characteristics that must be possessed by the Bi-Sws applied to the power converters are (i) switching at high frequencies and voltage, (ii) high temperature handling, and (iii) lower power losses. The modularity of the Bi-Sw circuit would facilitate the implementation of power converters, since it points to its use from simple power converters that require a smaller number of switches, such as the case of the voltage regulating converter, to matrix converter of 𝑛 quantities of phases, which demand the greater amount of Bi-Sw depending on the number of input or output phases. However, it is anticipated that, unlike custom designs of the Bi-Sw built in a single unit or electronic board for the power converters, the modules of the Bi-Sw for the interconnections between each other require the use of multiple connectors and cabling, raising the cost of implementation and also favoring generations of parasitic currents and driving losses due to driver impedances. This paper presents the design and implementation issues of a modular Bi-Sw using SiC-MOSFETs with the purpose of providing a practical alternative with attractive technical characteristics for the implementation of a power converter, providing the key points for its constructive design. Similar investigations have carried out studies of semiconductor SiC-MOSFET application in the matrix converter [20, 21]. These works have designed the Bi-Sws according to their applications, and without focusing on the description of their design. The contribution of this article is the design of the BiSw in a modular form explaining in detail the issues to its design and construction unlike with the articles previously cited, standardizing its use in power converters. Finally, an alternating voltage regulator is implemented experimentally to analyze its performance under frequency and power variations. The organization of the paper is as follows. Section 2 describes Bi-Sw topology and design. In Section 3 the BiSw is implemented in an ac voltage regulator in order to validate its operation in power convert (...truncated)