Browsing by Author "Lu, Guo-quan"

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    Constant-Flux Inductor with Enclosed-Winding Geometry for Improved Energy Density
    Cui, Han (Virginia Tech, 2013-06-28)
    The passive components such as inductors and capacitors are bulky parts on circuit boards. Researchers in academia, government, and industry have been searching for ways to improve the magnetic energy density and reduce the package size of magnetic parts. The "constant-flux" concept discussed herein is leveraged to achieve high magnetic-energy density by distributing the magnetic flux uniformly, leading to inductor geometries with a volume significantly lower than that of conventional products. A relatively constant flux distribution is advantageous not only from the density standpoint, but also from the thermal standpoint via the reduction of hot spots, and from the reliability standpoint via the suppression of flux crowding. For toroidal inductors, adding concentric toroidal cells of magnetic material and distributing the windings properly can successfully make the flux density distribution uniform and thus significantly improve the power density. Compared with a conventional toroidal inductor, the constant-flux inductor introduced herein has an enclosed-winding geometry. The winding layout inside the core is configured to distribute the magnetic flux relatively uniformly throughout the magnetic volume to obtain a higher energy density and smaller package volume than those of a conventional toroidal inductor. Techniques to shape the core and to distribute the winding turns to form a desirable field profile is described for one class of magnetic geometries with the winding enclosed by the core. For a given set of input parameters such as the inductor's footprint and thickness, permeability of the magnetic material, maximum permissible magnetic flux density for the allowed core loss, and current rating, the winding geometry can be designed and optimized to achieve the highest time constant, which is the inductance divided by resistance (L/Rdc). The design procedure is delineated for the constant-flux inductor design together with an example with three winding windows, an inductance of 1.6 µH, and a resistance of 7 mΩ. The constant-flux inductor designed has the same inductance, dc resistance, and footprint area as a commercial counterpart, but half the height. The uniformity factor α is defined to reflect the uniformity level inside the core volume. For each given magnetic material and given volume, an optimal uniformity factor exists, which has the highest time constant. The time constant varies with the footprint area, inductor thickness, relative permeability of the magnetic material, and uniformity factor. Therefore, the objective for the constant-flux inductor design is to seek the highest possible time constant, so that the constant-flux inductor gives a higher inductance or lower resistance than commercial products of the same volume. The calculated time-constant-density of the constant-flux inductor designed is 4008 s/m3, which is more than two times larger than the 1463 s/m3 of a commercial product. To validate the concept of constant-flux inductor, various ways of fabrication for the core and the winding were explored in the lab, including the routing process, lasing process on the core, etching technique on copper, and screen printing with silver paste. The most successful results were obtained from the routing process on both the core and the winding. The core from Micrometals has a relative permeability of around 22, and the winding is made of copper sheets 0.5 mm thick. The fabricated inductor prototype shows a significant improvement in energy density: at the same inductance and resistance, the volume of the constant-flux inductor is two times smaller than that of the commercial counterpart. The constant-flux inductor shows great improvement in energy density and the shrinking of the total size of the inductor below that of the commercial products. Reducing the volume of the magnetic component is beneficial to most power. The study of the constant-flux inductor is currently focused on the dc analysis, and the ac analysis is the next step in the research.
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    High Temperature SiC Embedded Chip Module (ECM) with Double-sided Metallization Structure
    yin, jian (Virginia Tech, 2005-12-09)
    The work reported in this dissertation is intended to propose, analyze and demonstrate a technology for a high temperature integrated power electronics module, for high temperature (e.g those over 200oC) applications involving high density and low stress. To achieve this goal, this study has examined some existing packaging approaches, such as wire-bond interconnects and solder die-attach, flip-chip and pressure contacts. Based on the survey, a high temperature, multilayer 3-D packaging technology in the form of an Embedded Chip Module (ECM) is proposed to realize a lower stress distribution in a mechanically balanced structure with double-sided metallization layers and material CTE match in the structure. Thermal and thermo-mechanical analysis on an ECM is then used to demonstrate the benefits on the cooling system, and to study the material and structure for reducing the thermally induced mechanical stress. In the thermal analysis, the high temperature ECM shows the ability to handle a power density up to 284 W/in3 with a heat spreader only 2.1x2.1x0.2cm under forced convection. The study proves that the cooling system can be reduced by 76% by using a high temperature module in a room temperature environment. Furthermore, six proposed structures are compared using thermo-mechanical analysis, in order to obtain an optimal structure with a uniform low stress distribution. Since pure Mo cannot be electroplated, the low CTE metal Cr is proposed as the stress buffering material to be used in the flat metallization layers for a fully symmetrical ECM structure. Therefore, a chip area stress as low as 126MPa is attained. In the fabrication process, the high temperature material glass and a ceramic adhesive are applied as the insulating and sealing layers. Particularly, the Cr stress buffering layer is successfully electroplated in the high temperature ECM by means of the hard chrome plating process. The flat metallization layer is accomplished by using a combined structure with Cr and Cu metallization layers. The experimental evaluations, including the electrical and thermal characteristics of the ECM, have been part of in the study. The forward and reverse characteristics of the ECM are presented up to 250oC, indicating proper device functionality. The study on the reverse characteristics of the ECM indicates that the large leakage current at high temperature is not due to the package surrounding the chip, but chiefly caused by the Schottky junction and the chip passivation layer. Finally, steady-state and transient measurements are conducted in terms of the thermal measurements. The steady-state thermal measurement is used to demonstrate the cooling system reduction. To obtain the thermal parameters of the different layers in the high temperature ECM, the transient thermal measurement is applied to a single chip ECM based on the temperature cooling-down curve measurement.