PROJECT SUMMARY
In recent years Power Electronics became a key issue for industrial application thus, it became important to improve the manufacturing process of such components.
Power Electronics does not lend itself to automated manufacturing and does not use standard building blocks. The assembly of electronic power converter is labour intensive and as a result the production and development are moving to lower cost countries in the East. Furthermore the improvement of power density and efficiently of converters is hampered by the technologies and the discrete components that are used for the assembly. By changing component shapes and materials we want to make it possible to increase the power density and adapt the manufacturing for low cost, automated production.
Furthermore in Power Electronics devices, such as modern power supply, EMI filters occupy a substantial portion of the volume. The increased costs of these EMC components with respect to the overall costs are the motivation of this research activity. To achieve a breakthrough an innovative production process is needed with lower cost, higher reliability, controlled EMI, controlled quality and a higher level of circuit integration.
Power Sandwich Technology is a new construction method to build electronic systems It is more than just a method to construct power electronic converters; it is an enabling technology to build full electronic systems in one sandwich that features:
Automated assembly and potentially much lower production cost that current state of art production.
Very low profile and high power density as a result of reduced packaging material, low thermal resistance and containment of EMI with a reduced number of components. The possibility to integrate the power supply into the electronic system.
The top layer is a conventional multilayer PCB with SMT components and can be used for high density digital systems.
The middle layer is intended for embedded windings and passive components and can also be used to filter EMI.
The bottom layer is intended for hot components and higher voltages, but can also be used to mount micro processors.
The specific goals of this project are:
Identify new (Meta) materials that are suitable for a 3D layer-by-layer construction.
Investigate the implementation of these materials to counteract EMI, improve reliability and cost.
Design and optimization from system integration point of view paying attention to electrical, EMI and thermal performance.
PARTICIPATING TE MEMBERS
- Prof.dr.ir.ing. F.B.J. Leferink
- Olga Tereshchenko, MSc.