Overview and development of a wide bandgap, high temperature circuit and measurement solution
Ross Michael Liederbach · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · 2016
This thesis takes a first step in investigating the design and feasibility of a high temperature power converter for various applications. From the dawn of wide bandgap materials, primarily gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC), research has pushed toward high temperature power circuit operation to either reduce cooling system requirements or operate in high temperature environments due to their theoretically higher temperature capacity when compared to traditional silicon (Si) based power converters. Although high temperature circuits have been designed, a full system overview, measurement practices, and transient switching characteristics have yet to be simply summed up in a single system-design oriented source. As a first step in providing a useful design tool, this thesis provides an overview of high temperature materials, circuit attach methods and switching characteristics of GaN devices at temperatures which push the system limits. Further suggestions for future work are provided as well to help promote progress in the research area.