• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.61-69
• /
• 2005

The topology of NPC inverter coupled with the large number of devices used increases the probability of device failure. It's necessary to develop an optimal remedial strategy which can be used to continue the application when fault occurs. The fault tolerance is obtained by the use of the proposed method. The proposed method utilizes that the one phase load with the failed power device could be connected to the center-tap of the DC-link capacitor in order to dc-link voltage with balance and the sinusoidal phase current with constant amplitude under the single power device fault condition. The strategy described in this paper is expected to provide an economic alternative to more expensive redundancy techniques.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.151-154
• /
• 2001

The leakage current behaviors of PLZT capacitors with top electrodes of Pt, Ir, and $IrO_2$ are investigated before and after hydrogen forming gas anneal. The P-E hysteresis and fatigue properties of Pt/PLZT/Pt capacitors are almost recovered after recovery anneal in $O_2$ ambient. The leakage current mechanisms of PLZT capacitors with Pt and $IrO_2$ top electrodes are consistent with space-charge influenced injection model showing the strong time dependence irrespective of annealing conditions. On the other hand, the leakage current behavior of Ir/PLZT/Pt capacitor shows steady state independent of time because IrPb, conducting phase, formed at interface between Ir top and PLZT is a high conduction path. Teh leakage current mechanism of Ir/PLZT/Pt capacitor is consistent with Schottky barrier model.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.30-38
• /
• 2019

Tracking, which is one of the main causes of electrical fires, is perceived as a physical phenomenon of electrical discharge. Hence tracking should be explained based on electric field analysis, conduction path by electron generation, and gas discharge physics. However, few papers have considered these details. This paper proposes a tracking mechanism including their effects on tracking progress. In order to prove this mechanism, a tracking experiment, an electric field analysis for the carbonization evolution model, and an explanation of the tracking process by gas discharge physics were conducted. From the tracking experiment, the current waveforms were measured at each stage of the tracking progress from corona discharge to tracking breakdown. The electric field analysis was carried out in order to determine the electric field on the surface of a dry-band and the high electric field region for electron generation during the generation and progress of carbonization. In this paper, the proposed tracking mechanism consisted of six stages including electron avalanche by corona discharge, accumulation of positive ions, expansion of electron avalanche, secondary electron emission avalanche, streamer, and tracking by conductive path. The pulse current waveforms measured in the tracking experiment can be explained by the proposed tracking mechanism. The results of this study will be used as the technical data to detect tracking phenomenon, which is the cause of electric fire, and to improve the proof tracking index.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
• /
• v.2C no.6
• /
• pp.281-286
• /
• 2002

The temperature accelerated dielectric breakdown strength of on-wafer low-k dielectric polymer films with thicknesses ranging from 94 nm to 1141 nm is investigated by using the current-voltage characteristic measurements with MIS structures. The temperature dependence of dielectric strength is demonstrated to be Arrhenious for all thicknesses. However, the activation energy is found to be strongly thickness dependent. It follows an exponential relationship rather than being a single value, i.e., the activation energy increase significantly as film thickness increases for the thickness below 500 nm, but it is almost constant for the thickness above 500 nm. This relationship suggests that the change of the activation energy corresponding to different film thickness is closely related to the temperature dependence of the electron trapping/detrapping process in polymer thin films, and is determined by both the trapping rate and the detrapping rate. Thinner films need less energy to form a conduction path compared to thicker films. Hence, it leads to smaller activation energy in thinner films, and the activation energy increases with the increase in film thickness. However, a nearly constant value of the activation energy is achieved above a certain range of film thickness, indicating that the trapping rate and detrapping rate is almost equal and eventually the activation energy approaches the value of bulk material.

• Journal of Power Electronics
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.1226-1235
• /
• 2016

For wearable health monitoring systems, a fundamental problem is the limited space for storing energy, which can be translated into a short operational life. In this paper, a highly efficient active voltage doubling rectifier with a wide input range for micro-piezoelectric energy harvesting systems is proposed. To obtain a higher output voltage, the Dickson charge pump topology is chosen in this design. By replacing the passive diodes with unbalanced-biased comparator-controlled active counterparts, the proposed rectifier minimizes the voltage losses along the conduction path and solves the reverse leakage problem caused by conventional comparator-controlled active diodes. To improve the rectifier input voltage sensitivity and decrease the minimum operational input voltage, two low power common-gate comparators are introduced in the proposed design. To keep the comparator from oscillating, a positive feedback loop formed by the capacitor C is added to it. Based on the SMIC 0.18-μm standard CMOS process, the proposed rectifier is simulated and implemented. The area of the whole chip is 0.91×0.97 mm², while the rectifier core occupies only 13% of this area. The measured results show that the proposed rectifier can operate properly with input amplitudes ranging from 0.2 to 1.0V and with frequencies ranging from 20 to 3000 Hz. The proposed rectifier can achieve a 92.5% power conversion efficiency (PCE) with input amplitudes equal to 0.6 V at 200 Hz. The voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) is around 93% for input amplitudes greater than 0.3 V and load resistances larger than 20kΩ.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.21 no.9
• /
• pp.835-843
• /
• 2008

We have fabricated the source-drain electrodes for OTFTs by screen printing method and manufactured Ag pastes as conductive paste. To obtain excellent conductivity and screen-printability of Ag pastes, the dispersion characteristics of Ag pastes prepared from two types of acryl resins with different molecular structures and Ag powder treated with caprylic acid, triethanol amine and dodecane thiol as surfactant respectively were investigated. The Ag pastes containing Ag powder treated with dodecane thiol having thiol as anchor group or AA4123 with carboxyl group(COOH) of hydrophilic group as binder resin exhibited excellent dispersity. But, Ag pastes(CA-41, TA-41, DT-41) prepared from AA4123 fabricated the insulating layer since the strong interaction between surface of Ag powder and carboxyl group(COOH) of AA4123 interfered with the formation of conduction path among Ag powders. The viscosity behavior of Ag pastes exhibited shear-thinning flow in the high shear rate range and the pastes with bad dispersion characteristic demonstrated higher shear-thinning index than those with good dispersity due to the weak flocculated network structure. The output curve of OTFT device with a channel length of 107 ${\mu}m$ using screen-printed S-D electrodes from DT-30 showed good saturation behavior and no significant contact resistance. And this device exhibited a saturation mobility of $4.0{\times}10^{-3}$ $cm^2/Vs$, on/off current ratio of about $10^5$ and a threshold voltage of about 0.7 V.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.40 no.11
• /
• pp.1067-1072
• /
• 2003

The electrical stability of the varistor ceramics composed of Zn-Pr-Co-Cr-Dy oxides-based varistors was investigated at 0.0∼2.0 mol% Dy$_2$O$_3$ content under DC accelerated aging stress. The ceramic density was increased up to 0.5 mol% Dy$_2$O$_3$ whereas further addition of Dy$_2$O$_3$ decreased sintered ceramic density. The density sailently affected the stability due to the variation of conduction path. The nonlinearity of varistor ceramics was greatly improved above 45 in the nonlinear exponent and below nearly 1.0 ${\mu}$A by incorporating Dy$_2$O$_3$. Under 0.95 V$\_$1mA/150$^{\circ}C$/24 h stress state, the varistor ceramics doped with 0.5 mol% Dy$_2$O$_3$ exhibited the highest electrical stability, in which the variation rates of varistor voltage, nonlinear exponent, and leakage current were -0.9%, -14.4%, and +483.3%, respectively. The variation rates of relative permittivity and dissipation factor were +7.1% and +315.4%, respectively. The varistors with further addition of Dy$_2$O$_3$ exhibited very unstable state resulting in the thermal runaway due to low density.