Application considerations for Double Sided Cooled Modules in Automotive Environment

Abstract:
Today, Europe’s transport contributes significantly to total greenhouse gas emissions (approximately 24 % in 2016) and thus to global warming. Therefore, ambitious targets for car manufactures have been set within the European Union, to reduce fleet emissions to below 60g CO2 per km in 2030. Therefore, the ECSEL JU project HiPERFORM was set up to support the spread of electrified vehicles by getting rid of the drawbacks mentioned before. The project aims at the application of advanced and highly integrated wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor technologies in electronic power circuits of electrified vehicles and as well as the associated charging devices and infrastructures. A key technology being developed in the HiPERFORM project is a double-sided cooled power module with Silicon Carbide semiconductors chips. The double-sided cooling of the package enables new mechanical architectures and layouts for power electronics in automotive applications. This design freedom is expected to lead to more compact and lighter power electronics designs which can be a big differentiator in automotive applications. The paper will describe in some detail the efforts towards thermal design of double-sided cooled package and also the implementation of the package in an automotive inverter application.