Award winners of the PCIM Europe Conference 2024 announced

Since 2008, the PCIM Europe Conference has been recognising noteworthy entries and promoting young talent in the power electronics industry at its annual awards ceremony. The winning submissions will be presented by the award winners at the conference from 11th to 13th June 2024 in Nuremberg. The PCIM Europe Advisory Board, chaired by Prof. Dr. Leo Lorenz, ECPE, selected the top five from over 500 submissions. The criteria for the awards included topicality, relevance, and quality of the submissions.

The Best Paper Award recognises the three most outstanding submissions overall. Engineers aged 30 and under were eligible to apply for the Young Engineer Award. Since 2022, the Young Researcher Award has been presented to an author up to the age of 30 from the field of science and research institutions. Prof. Dr. Leo Lorenz, along with this year's conference sponsors Littelfuse, Mitsubishi Electric, and Semikron Danfoss, presented the awards during the conference opening and award ceremony at the PCIM Europe Conference 2024. The winners of the awards will also receive prize money of €1,000.

Winners at a glance

Best Paper Award

Bhaskar Chatterjee, Robert Bosch, Germany

A Partial Load Three-Phase Triangular Current Mode Modulation Concept with an Optimised Filter Inductor for High Efficiency Traction Drives

Michael Hanf, University of Bremen, Germany 

Corrosion Resistant Packaging for Power Semiconductor Modules – Modified Insulation Materials for Contaminated Environments

Dennis Helmut, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany 

Characterisation of Power-Module Parasitics: Sub-Nanosecond Large Signal Pulsing vs. Double-Pulse Testing 

Young Engineer Award

Adriana Campos, SuperGrid Institute, France

CO2 Footprint of Medium Voltage DC Solid State Transformer

Young Researcher Award

Andreas Horat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Highly-Compact Bearingless Axial-Flux Motor for a Pediatric Implantable Fontan Blood Pump

Abstracts of the Best Papers

Bhaskar Chatterjee, Robert Bosch, Germany

A Partial Load Three-Phase Triangular Current Mode Modulation Concept with an Optimised Filter Inductor for High Efficiency Traction Drives

This paper introduces a partial load three-phase Triangular Current Mode (TCM) modulation concept for high efficiency traction drives. The focus is on the design of the TCM filter inductor on the AC node of the inverter. An optimised inductor design is presented with low power-loss and high power-density.

Michael Hanf, University of Bremen, Germany 

Corrosion Resistant Packaging for Power Semiconductor Modules – Modified Insulation Materials for Contaminated Environments

The increasing electrification of high-power applications in various environments leads to more complex mission profiles and reliability issues for power semiconductor devices. This can lead to corrosion mechanisms induced by contaminants like hydrogen-sulphide (H2S) or similar species. To increase the robustness of IGBT-modules against H2S-driven failure mechanisms, this study will show modified insulation materials to inhibit the relevant corrosion products.

Dennis Helmut, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany 

Characterisation of Power-Module Parasitics: Sub-Nanosecond Large Signal Pulsing vs. Double-Pulse Testing 

In the evaluation of parasitics within modern power modules, two methodologies have been applied: the sensor gap TLP (sgTLP), which utilises Time Domain Reflectometry with pulses that mirror power electronics conditions and notably does not require a current probe, and the established double-pulse testing (DPT). Both techniques aim to offer a thorough insight, with DPT serving as a reference to validate and complement the sgTLP findings for module optimisation.

Abstract of the Young Engineer Award Paper

Adriana Campos, SuperGrid Institute, France

CO2 Footprint of Medium Voltage DC Solid State Transformer Power converters are a key technology to support the massive integration of renewable energy sources and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. It is therefore important to assess their environmental impact. This work proposes a methodology for the environmental assessment of DC Solid State Transformer using Life Cycle Analysis and it estimates the emissions of the DC SST for different operating frequencies.

Abstract of the Young Researcher Award Paper

Andreas Horat, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Highly-Compact Bearingless Axial-Flux Motor for a Pediatric Implantable Fontan Blood Pump

A pediatric implantable rotary blood pump (RBP) is under development in a research collaboration between the ETH Zurich, the University of Innsbruck, and the Medical University of Vienna. The RBP is driven by a small bearingless dual-stator axial-flux PMSM, providing 2.2 mNm of torque at a rotational speed of 5500 rpm. The paper provides details about bearing force generation, the sensors needed for accurate position estimation and demonstrates stable levitation control on a hardware prototype.