Hardwaredevelopement

In addition to project-related laboratory and demonstrator setups, auxiliary circuits and hardware components are developed at the department to support daily work. Furthermore, the department Power Electronics offers corresponding services for the development of appropriate hardware. The following is a small excerpt of circuits developed so far:

With a view to fast-switching SiC and GaN devices, a new generation of signal generators has been developed at the Department of Power Electronics. With a temporal resolution of less than 10 nanoseconds, arbitrary pulse shapes can be output. A total of 8 output channels can also be adjusted in voltage level between 3.3V and 15V.

Via USB or network connection the device can be well integrated into the existing own measurement park. Since the logic is implemented on an Intel Cyclone 10 FPGA, individual controls (e.g. for a B6 inverter setup) can also be implemented. Four of the 8 channels can also be reconfigured as analog inputs. Network functions and USB communication are handled by a Cortex-M0+ controller, which can be extended with additional high-level functions if required. Thus, a Swiss Army knife is available for the laboratory.

To investigate fast wide-bandgap semiconductors based on gallium nitride, an FPGA board based on an Altera (now Intel) Cyclone III was developed in 2014. In addition to a single-phase PV inverter with 150kHz current control, the board was used to control a 12-phase BLDC motor. A sliding-mode controller was used as the control strategy here. Furthermore, the board is used to generate high temporal resolution double pulse signals with a temporal resolution of 5ns steps.

For the adaptation of different voltages, a universal voltage probe was developed which allows different output voltages in addition to quasi-galvanic isolation.

Although commercial data loggers (e.g. Agilent 34970A) offer great advantages in terms of scope and reproducibility, there are applications where specific hardware is required. Numerous devices for simple temperature recording have been developed on the basis of microcontrollers connected via USB, which record temperatures and other signals and forward them to a connected measuring computer.

Universal gate drivers, some with special functions, have been developed for short-term tests of a circuit under special measurement conditions. The classic version can test the semiconductors under different conditions with a variable gate voltage. In an adapted variant, the gate drivers are switched automatically and semiconductor losses under different conditions are recorded automatically via our ComCell measurement software.