PHYSICAL MODELING OF POWER SEMICONDUCTORS FOR THE CAE-DESIGN OF POWER ELECTRONIC-CIRCUITS

CAE-tools can help to develop any traditional or novel power conversion topology more efficiently, by providing both the possibilities of investigation without the risk of destruction and of access to each signal in the circuit. However, a prerequisite are trustworthy simulation results both qualitatively for operation observation and quantitatively for power dissipation examination as well as for SOA control. This implies that precise power semiconductor models have to be used. In the variety of different possible modeling strategies there is only the strictly physical way which offers topology independent accurate results. In this paper a new class of physical high performance and high accuracy circuit models for today's relevant power semiconductors (Power-Diode, GTO, IGBT, Power-MOSFET) is presented. A modular concept, handling typical features of power devices like v-zones, MOSFET controlling units or diffusion zones as basic structures, is used which allows a considerable flexibility to model future devices time efficiently. The core of this modular concept, constituted by a module of the v-zone, employs a universal and powerful solution technique of the ambipolar diffusion equation. This technique is the only possibility for circuit models to consider physically semiconductor technology measures for improving device characteristics, such as particle irradiation for lifetime reduction, step doping of substrate or epitaxial layers as well as double diffused layers.