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Calculation of IGBT power losses and junction temperature in inverter drive

Conference Paper · November 2016

DOI: 10.1109/ICMIC.2016.7804216

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8th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC-2016)
Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

Calculation of IGBT Power Losses and

JunctionTemperature in inverter drive
Ahcene BOUZIDA Radia ABDELLI M’hamed OUADAH
Faculté des Sciences de l'Ingénieur Laboratoire de Technologie Industrielle Research Center in Industrial
Université de M'hamed Bougara et de l'Information Technologies (CRTI)
Boumerdes , 35000, Algeria Bejaia University 06000, Algeria Algiers 16000, Algeria
E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Several techniques for estimating power losses in maximum permissible value. The fatigue of the component
insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), diodes and MOSFETs is mainly caused by the repetitive tensile and compressive
are known. Most of the approaches in the literature deal with
PWM switching technique. In this paper presents a feasible loss stresses occurred in the adjacent layers such as the
model to estimate IGBT losses in a switching operation. The loss Silicon die, solder, and substrate. The repetitive thermal
model is coupled to RC (Foster) Network using the Thermal stress due to the temperature fluctuation induced by the
Impedance. This paper investigates the power losses in IGBT's power cycling is the main contribution of the repetitive tensile
and associated Diodes as a function of the circuit and the and compressive stresses [1,3,6,13].
temperature variation during operation. A full presentation of
the electro-thermal model has been developed and simulated. However, due to the large number of power devices and
multiplicity of physical effects involved, it is not an easy
task to create an electro-thermal model which can predict the
keywords: Inverter, IGBT, Losses, Thermal Analysis, Inverter transient power dissipation and junction temperature of the
power devices instantaneously.
I. INTRODUCTION
An electrical engineer may focus more on the current
Power electronics is the application of power and voltage waveforms than temperature prediction, while
semiconductor devices for the control and conversion of it is more likely for a mechanical engineer to regard the
electric energy. According to the nature of the input and semiconductor device as a various layers of material for heat
output power. Power electronics converters are widely applied propagation. In addition, the electrical phenomenon (switching
in the modern society such as the renewable energy process) happens in several nanoseconds while the heat
applications, electric drives, and power supplies. In many transfer process happens in a much larger time scale (several
electric drive applications, power inverters are applied to minutes or hours). Therefore, the simulation time step
convert the DC power to the AC power for electric should be small enough to catch the transient detail while
machines. The reliability of power inverters is critical to the the total simulation time should be long enough to obtain
safety operation of the system, especially for the traction the long-term temperature profile.
applications.
This requirement makes the electro-thermal simulation
The principal components in a power inverter are power very time consuming and sometimes nearly impossible.
semiconductor devices. In high power and high voltage power Therefore, a compromise must be made between the
electronics applications, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor simulation speed and accuracy.
(IGBT) modules have become one of the most widely used
power semiconductors. However, the rapid development of Many works have been made to establish the electro-
power semiconductor technology results in the increase of the thermal model of inverters and typically three steps are
power rating and decrease of the size, which bring required [1,3,4,13,14]:
inevitable challenges to the thermal management of power 1- Building the power losses model,
electronics converters.
2- Building the thermal model,
The temperature augmentation introduces mechanical
stress to the components and, therefore, it affects the 3- Coupling between these two models.
connections of solder and wire bond. The impact of the This work focuses on fast and accurate transient electro-
temperature on the life time of power semiconductor thermal simulation of the commonly used power electronics
components is classified into two types: destruction converters: the IGBT based three-phase voltage-source
damage and fatigue of the component. The destruction or traction inverters. This simulation model will be able to
permanent damage of components is caused by the long-term provide the information that can be applied for the thermal
exposure to the junction temperature that exceeds the management system design, package optimization, analysis of

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8th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC-2016)
Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

the device long-term reliability, and maximum rating

characterization. A positive gate-emitter voltage UGE is applied during the
turn-on transition period. When the positive voltage rises
higher than the threshold voltage (UGE >Uth) the collector
II. OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLE AND LOSSES COMPOSITION current IC starts to flow from the collector to the emitter. After
a current rise time tri, Ic reaches the load current value I0, and
OF IGBT
then the collector-emitter voltage UCE starts to drop. After UCE
Fig.1 shows the circuit symbol and physical structure of falls to its small on-state value of Uon the turn on process is
the IGBT and freewheeling diode inside an IGBT power over. The energy dissipation caused by the large values of
module. There are three terminals which are denoted as: switch voltage and current during the turn-on crossover
Collector, Emitter, and Gate. The collector and emitter are interval ts(on) is called switching on loss. During the turn-off
related to the conductance path and the gate is designed for its transition period, the reverse process happens. Firstly, the
control. current and voltage remain constant until UGE drops below the
level required to maintain the collector current IC at the load
current value. Then during the voltage rise time tru, the
collector-emitter voltage UCE starts to rise to the blocked
voltage UB while IC still remains constant. After this period, IC
falls to zero with a current fall time tfi and the current I0
commutates from the switch to the diode. The energy
dissipation caused by the large values of switch voltage and
current during the turn-off crossover interval ts(off) is the
switching off loss.
Between these two states, the switch remains in conduction
Fig.1. Simplified physical structure of an IGBT module with the on-state voltage Uon and the conducting current Io.
IGBT is a voltage-controlled device with a gate controlled This time interval is defined as the on-state interval, which is
signal (UGE) applied between the gate and emitter. The much larger than the turn on and turn off time intervals. The
working process and losses composition of it is showed in energy dissipation during this on-state interval is called the
Fig.2. conduction losses.
The switching-off losses of the diode are determined by
the reversely recovery losses of the diode. The voltage and
current waveforms of the diode during the turn off transition is
illustrated in Fig.3.

Fig.3. Reverse recovery voltage and current waveforms of freewheeling

diode: (a) Current of the freewheeling diode (b) Voltage of the freewheeling
diode.

III. CONDUCTION LOSSES OF IGBT

The conduction losses can be represented as the product of
the instantaneous conducted current ic(t) and the
corresponding collector-emitter voltage uCE(t) [14]:

Fig.2. Power losses of a switching cycle of an IGBT: (a) Gate-emitter Pcon (t )  i C (t ) u CE (t ) (1)
voltage; (b) Collector current; (c) Collector-emitter voltage; (d) Power losses
of the IGBT

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Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

temperature Tref and evaluation the changes of junction

temperature Tj versus time t. [13]
A. Switching Losses of IGBT
Similarly, the instantaneous power dissipate p(t) of the The definition of transient thermal impedance can be
IGBT during the switching on and off process is also equal to expressed as:
iC(t)*uCE(t). However, since these processes typically happen
in a very short time interval such as several hundred
T j (t )  Tref
Z th (t)  (5)
nanoseconds, the energy dissipation during the switch-on and P
switch-off processes is more concerned about. The switching-
on energy Eon and switching-off energy Eoff can be expressed If the thermal system can be assumed to be a linear and
as [13-14]: time invariant (LTI) system, then obviously the transient

i
thermal impedance corresponds in system theory to the step
Eon (t )  C (t )uCE (t ) dt (2) response of the system with zero initial condition, and
therefore it contains the full thermal description of the system

i
ton
[13]. The transient junction temperature under any power
Eoff (t )  C (t )uCE (t ) dt (3) dissipation profile P(t) will be able to be predicted by applying
toff
follow equation [14]:

B. Losses of the Freewheeling Diode 

T j (t )  T0  P(t ) Zth (t  t0 )d (6)
There are also conduction losses and switching losses of
the freewheeling diode. The conduction losses are also Where T0 is the initial temperature and ̇ ℎ( ) is the time
represented by the product of the instantaneous forward derivative of the thermal impedance, which corresponds to the
voltage drop of the diode uF and the current iF flowing thermal impulse response of the system.
through the diode.
This method treats the thermal problem as a system with
PFcon (t )  iF (t )uF (t ) (4) the power loss as input and the temperature rise as output. It
focuses only on the thermal transient behavior of the system
Normally, due to the very short turn-on time with respect thus the physical structure is not concerned about.
to the switching period, the switching-on losses of the diode Because of the advantages mentioned above, the
are always neglected [13]. manufacturer of IGBT module usually provides the transient
The switching-off losses of the diode are determined by the thermal impedance curve of junction to case Zjc to the users to
reversely recovery losses of the diode. The voltage and current carry out thermal analysis and a typical thermal impedance
waveforms of the diode during the turn off transition is curve for IGBT module is shown in Fig.4.
illustrated in Fig.3. The next problem is finding an equivalent network whose
Similar to the switching energy dissipation of the IGBT, the step response is the same as the measured or simulated
diode recovery energy Erec can be defined as: transient thermal impedance curve. Actually, there are
numerous networks whose step responses can meet this

i
requirement. However the one called Foster network, which is
Erec (t )  F (t )u F (t )dt (5) shown in Fig.5, is the most commonly used one because it is
trec easy to extract the coefficient of it from the simulated thermal
impedance curve [13].
The power loss calculation in this section is based on the
external characteristics of the devices, such as the junction
temperature, the collector current and the forward voltage
drop.
IV. BEHAVIORAL BASED RC (FOSTER) NETWORK AND
DEFINITION OF THERMAL IMPEDANCE
The behavioral based RC network (also known as the
foster network) is proposed analysis the thermal behavior of
the IGBT. The R and C elements of the equivalent circuit in
this model are extracted by fitting the thermal dynamic curve.
The key step in using this method is to calculate the transient
thermal impedance, which is obtained by heating or cooling
the module with defined power dissipation P until the junction
temperature reaches its steady-state value. The temperature Fig.4. Typical transient thermal imedance curve
rise ΔT is then determined by fixing the case at a constant

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8th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC-2016)
Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

Where τi is the product of Ri and Ci, and it is called the

thermal time constant.
V. ELECTRO-THERMAL MODEL IMPLEMENTATION
The diagram of the electro-thermal model is shown in
Fig.6. In order to take into account the effects of the junction
temperatures on the power losses, the estimated junction
temperatures are fed back to the power loss calculation and the
Fig.5: Foster network of the package
thermal coupling effects are considered in the thermal model.
When using the Foster network, the transient thermal The total power losses of the IGBT are composed of the
impedance curve can be fitted into a series consists of a finite switching losses and the conduction losses, and the power
number of exponential terms as given in (7): losses of the diode are composed of the conduction losses and
diode recovery losses. They are all functions of the current and

 R (1  exp( R C ))
junction temperature. Furthermore, the junction temperatures
t
n
Z jc (t )  (7) of the IGBTs and Diodes are different. Therefore, the power
i
i 1 i i losses and junction temperatures of different devices are
calculated separately. But the calculating methods for the
The transfer function of the Foster network is found by same-side devices are similar and, therefore, they are not
applying Laplace transform to (7): shown in the diagram.

  s  1 / 
n
 Ri /  i 
Z jc (t )   (8)
i 1 i 

Fig.6: Diagram of the electro-thermal model

In most applications, the amplitude, frequency and even

VI. SIMULATION RESULTS phase of the AC output voltage generated in the inverter need
The IGBTs and Diodes in phase A are discussed as an to be adjustable and these requirements are realized by
example. The judgment method for the current path is as controlling the gate signal to turn on and turn off the switches
follow: when the high-side IGBT S1 is on and S2 is off, if the (IGBT) at appropriate time periodically. Normally, the
load current Ia is positive, then the current flows through the switching sequence is determined by using the pulse width
S1 itself. However if the current is negative, then the current modulation (PWM) technique [13-14].
could only flow through the high-side diode D1. Oppositely, For the simulation purpose, the load current ia is imposed
when S1 is off and S4 is on, if the load current is positive, then 50A, 150A, 200A and 250A; and it becomes a sinusoidal
the current flows through the low-side diode D4, otherwise it waveform due to the inductive elements in the load devices.
flows though S4. The Fig.7 show the inverter line to line voltage.
The inverter used in this section is a three phase voltage-
source inverter and the objective of this inverter is to converts
a DC input voltage to an AC output voltage to drive load.

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8th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC-2016)
Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

Fig.7: Inverter voltage waveform

Fig.10: Diode Junction temperature waveforms under different load current
In Fig.8, the IGBT and Diode current is shown , when
the current of phase A is positive, the losses are added to Since the junction temperature is mainly influenced by
IGBT S1 and Diode D4. The period of the sine wave current the power losses oscillate at the fundamental frequency, it
and thus period the power losses are 10ms, which corresponds is possible to average the switching losses to a larger
to the modulation frequency. time length and thus the time step can be also increased.
Figures 11, 12, 13 and 14 shows this process for the
switching and conduction phenomena according to load
current, the switching energy are kept all the same and
averaged to various time length including (the real switch
on and of time length), It can be observed that since the time
length becomes larger, the power level of switching
process becomes smaller and the temperature ripple also
becomes smaller.
As shown in figures 11 to 14, the power loss in each
device (IGBT or diode) depends on the conducted current and
temperature in that device, thus we need to decide when and
which device is conducting the current to get the power loss
profile of that device in the simulation model.
Fig.8: IGBT and Diode current waveform

The time behavior of the junction temperatures for the

IGBT and the associated Diode in 200ms are shown in
figures 9 and 10. It can be observed that the thermal inertia
of the system was large enough so that the power loss
variation within a switching cycle (the switching losses)
would not cause significant temperature fluctuation. However
the junction temperature can still respond to the power
loss oscillates at the fundamental frequency (the losses
oscillate in 10ms) and the instantaneous temperature
fluctuation of the IGBT can be as large as 10ºC according to
the load current. Fig.11: Average the switching losses in IGBT under different loads

Fig.9: IGBT Junction temperature waveforms under different load current

Fig.12: Average the conduction losses in IGBT under different load current

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 8th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC-2016)
Algiers, Algeria- November 15-17, 2016

developed. The model offer the feasibility and accuracy of

using a behavior based thermal network model to
represent an inverter containing both the power modules
and the heat sink.
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A comprehensive thermal model of the IGBT-DIODE
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