• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.431-437
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• 2022

This study proposes a converter that makes battery charging, discharging, and zero voltage control possible. The proposed topology consists of an LLC converter and a half-bridge inverter, and all power semiconductor devices are applied Si-MOSFETs. The topology is designed with an LLC switching frequency of 100 kHz, a half-bridge inverter switching frequency of 50 kHz, and a battery voltage of 5 V. The advantages of the charging/discharging operation of the 5 V battery voltage and the zero voltage control of the battery are verified. In addition, by using a two-stage topology, the battery can be charged, discharged through current control, and discharged to zero voltage. With the proposed topology, the current can be maintained even when the battery voltage drops to zero.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.377-386
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• 2012

An interleaved bridgeless buck-boost AC/DC converter is presented in this paper to achieve the characteristics of low conduction loss, a high power factor and low harmonic and ripple currents. There are only two power semiconductors in the line current path instead of the three power semiconductors in a conventional boost AC/DC converter. A buck-boost converter operated in the boundary conduction mode (BCM) is adopted to control the active switches to achieve the following characteristics: no diode reverse recovery problem, zero current switching (ZCS) turn-off of the rectifier diodes, ZCS turn-on of the power switches, and a low DC bus voltage to reduce the voltage stress of the MOSFETs in the second DC/DC converter. Interleaved pulse-width modulation (PWM) is used to control the switches such that the input and output ripple currents are reduced such that the output capacitance can be reduced. The voltage doubler topology is adopted to double the output voltage in order to extend the useable energy of the capacitor when the line voltage is off. The circuit configuration, principle operation, system analysis, and a design example are discussed and presented in detail. Finally, experiments on a 500W prototype are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.777-783
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• 2010

In order to drive gas discharge lamps, DC-AC converters with a LCC resonant tank, whose output voltage is adjusted by a variable frequency control are frequently used. However, when they are activated by varying the operating frequency, converters are frequently damaged by unstable operation, due to the rising and falling of the operating frequency near the resonant frequency. To solve this problem, a simple protection circuit for the power supply of a gas discharge lamp is proposed in this paper. This circuit senses the primary current of the main transformer. Using this protection circuit, the operating frequency of the lamp driving inverter system is kept close to and on the right side of the resonant frequency and the inverter is always operated in the ZVS condition. The resulting stable variable frequency operation allows various gas discharge lamps to be tested without the risk of damaging the main switches, because the protection circuit can protect the power MOSFETs of bridge converters from abnormal conditions. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed protection circuit are verified through the experimental results.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.110-114
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• 2007

Dependence of the thermal stability of nickel silicide on the film stress of inter layer dielectric (ILD) layer has been investigated in this study and silicon nitride $(Si_3N_4)$ layer is used as an ILD layer. Nickel silicide was formed with a one-step rapid thermal process at $500^{\circ}C$ for 30 sec. $2000{\AA}$ thick $Si_3N_4$ layer was deposited using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition after the formation of Ni silicide and its stress was split from compressive stress to tensile stress by controlling the power of power sources. Stress level of each stress type was also split for thorough analysis. It is found that the thermal stability of nickel silicide strongly depends on the stress type as well as the stress level induced by the $Si_3N_4$ layer. In the case of high compressive stress, silicide agglomeration and its phase transformation from the low-resistivity nickel mono-silicide to the high-resistivity nickel di-silicide are retarded, and hence the thermal stability is obviously improved a lot. However, in the case of high tensile stress, the thermal stability shows the worst case among the stressed cases.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.189-194
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• 2018

Nowadays most integrated circuits are built using the bulk CMOS technology, but it has much difficulty in further reduction of the power consumption and die size. As a super low-power technology to solve such problems, the SOI technology attracts great attention recently. In this paper, the study results of the temperature dependency of the hot carrier effects in the n-channel MOSFETs fabricated on the thin SOI substrate were discussed. In spite that the devices employed the LDD structure, the hot carrier effects were more serious than expected due to the high series resistance between the channel region and the substrate contact to the ground, and were found to be less serious for the higher temperature with the more phonon scattering in the channel region, which resulted in reducing the hot electron generation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1296-1308
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• 2014

This paper presents a new zero voltage switching (ZVS) converter for medium power and high input voltage applications. Three three-level pulse-width modulation (PWM) circuits with the same power switches are adopted to clamp the voltage stress of MOSFETs at $V_{in}/2$ and to achieve load current sharing. Thus, the current stresses and power ratings of transformers and power semiconductors at the secondary side are reduced. The resonant inductance and resonant capacitance are resonant at the transition interval such that active switches are turned on at ZVS within a wide range of input voltage and load condition. The series-connected transformers are adopted in each three-level circuit. Each transformer can work as an inductor to smooth the output current or a transformer to achieve the electric isolation and power transfer. Thus, no output inductor is needed at the secondary side. Three center-tapped rectifiers connected in parallel are used at the secondary side to achieve load current sharing. Compared with the conventional parallel three-level converters, the proposed converter has less switch counts. Finally, experiments based on a 1.44kW prototype are provided to verify the operation principle of proposed converter.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.301-303
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• 2001

In this paper we present a Capacitor Charging Power Supply (CCPS) using a series-resonant three-level inverter topology to improve voltage regulation and use semiconductor switches having low blocking voltage capability such as MOSFETs. This inverter can be operated with two modes, Full Power Mode (FPM) and Half Power Mode (HPM). In FPM inverter supplies the high frequency step up transformer with full DC-link voltage and in HPM with half DC-link voltage. HPM switching method will be adopted when CCPS output voltage reaches the preset target value and operates in refresh mode-charge is maintained on the capacitor. In this topology each semiconductor devices blocks a half of the DC-link voltage[2]. A 15kW, 30kV CCPS has been built and will be tested for an electric precipitator application. The CCPS operates from an input voltage of 500VDC and has a variable output voltage between 10 to 30kV and 1kHz repetition rate at 44nF capacitive load [3]. A resonant frequency of 67.9kHz was selected and a voltage regulation of $0.83\%$ has been achieved through the use of half power mode without using the forced cut off the switch current [1]. The theory of operation, circuit topology and test results are given.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1255-1267
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• 2018

Parasitic parameters have a larger influence on Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices with an increase of the switching frequency. This limits full utilization of the performance advantages of the low switching losses in high frequency applications. By combining a theoretical analysis with a experimental parametric study, a mathematic model considering the parasitic inductance and parasitic capacitance is developed for the basic switching circuit of a SiC MOSFET. The main factors affecting the switching characteristics are explored. Moreover, a fast-switching double pulse test platform is built to measure the individual influences of each parasitic parameters on the switching characteristics. In addition, guidelines are revealed through experimental results. Due to the limits of the practical layout in the high-speed switching circuits of SiC devices, the matching relations are developed and an optimized layout design method for the parasitic inductance is proposed under a constant length of the switching loop. The design criteria are concluded based on the impact of the parasitic parameters. This provides guidelines for layout design considerations of SiC-based high-speed switching circuits.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.41-60
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• 1995

The IGBT(Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) is a power semiconductor device that has gained acceptance among circuit design engineers for motor drive and power converter applications. IGBT devices(International Rectifier, Proposed proposed model etc) have the best features of both power MOSFETs and power bipolar transistors, i.e., efficient voltage gate drive requirememts and high current density capability. When designing circuit and systems that utilize IGBTs or other power semiconductor devices, circuit simulations are needed to examine how the devices affect the behavior of the circuit. The interaction of the IGBT with the load circuit can be described using the device model and the state equation of the load circuit. The voltage rise rate at turn-off for inductive loads varies significantly for IGBTs with different base life times, and this rate of rise is important in determing the voltage overshoot for a given series resistor-inductor load circuit. Excessive voltage overshoot is potentially destructive, so a snubber protection circuit may be required. The protection circuit requirements are unique for the IGBT and can be examined using the model. The IGBT model in this paper is verified by comparing the results of the model with experimented results for various circuit operating conditions. The model performs well and describes experimented results accurately for the range of static and dynamic condition in which the device is intended to be operated.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.606-611
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• 2011

Power electronics is a key technology for electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles. Typical power electronics converters used in electric drive vehicles include dc/dc converters, inverters, and battery chargers. New semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and novel topologies such as the Z-source inverter (ZSI) have a great deal of potential to improve the overall performance of these vehicles. In this paper, a Z-source inverter for fuel cell vehicle application is examined under three different scenarios. 1. a ZSI with Si IGBT modules, 2. a ZSI with hybrid modules, Si IGBTs/SiC Schottky diodes, and 3. a ZSI with SiC MOSFETs/SiC Schottky diodes. Then, a comparison of the three scenarios is conducted. Conduction loss, switching loss, reverse recovery loss, and efficiency are considered for comparison. A conclusion is drawn that the SiC devices can improve the inverter and inverter-motor efficiency, and reduce the system size and cost due to the low loss properties of SiC devices. A comparison between a ZSI and traditional PWM inverters with SiC devices is also presented in this paper. Based on this comparison, the Z-source inverter produces the highest efficiency.