Kirill Klein has won the Young Engineer Award of PCIM Europe 2020 for his paper on “Low Inductive Full Ceramic SiC Power Module for High-Temperature Automotive Applications”. The formal presentation of the award, followed by a personal Q&A session, will take place at 10:20 to 10:30 am on July 8^th as part of this year’s online PCIM conference.

In the prize paper, Kirill Klein and his co-authors introduce a fully ceramic power module designed to extend the range of electric vehicles at lower system costs.

This feat is made possible by the clever use of silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors, achieving an unparalleled switching speed and accuracy and extremely low thermal resistance at high working temperatures in the finished module.

The choice of Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) substrate enables a sophisticated electromagnetic design with best-in-class switching properties, while keeping switching losses to a minimum. The technology promises improved system performance with the same number of SiC semiconductors.

At the same time, the design benefits from the exceptional thermal performance of the chosen silicon nitride AMB substrate. As a fully ceramic substrate, it promises excellent cooling capacities and high reliability even at high temperatures and high voltages.

The award-winning paper delves into the details of the technology and the electromagnetic design and discusses the power module’s performance in thermal and double-pulse tests in detail.

The paper was co-authored by Olaf Rämer (Fraunhofer IZM), Professor Eckart Hoene (Fraunhofer IZM), Yusuke Yasuda (Hitachi Metals Europe GmbH), Hiroyuki Ito (Hitachi Metals Ltd), Fumi Kurita (Hitachi Metals Ltd), Masato Enoki (Hitachi Metals Ltd.), Hideyuki Nakamura (Hitachi Metals Ltd.), Kenji Okishiro (Hitachi Metals Ltd.)

This year’s conference will be hosted as a special online event on 7 and 8 July.