The winners of the PCIM Europe 2016 Best Paper have been announced

Remarkable was the extremely high number of top-class contributions of young engineers. Thus, among the six nominees for the Best Paper Award, there were also four candidates for the title of the Young Engineer Award. The Young Engineer Awards were granted to exceptional contributions from young professionals (not older than 35 years). The laudation was held by the Scientific Advisory Board Chairperson, Prof. Dr. Leo Lorenz of ECPE, Germany.

The papers were presented for the first time at the PCIM Europe 2016 Conference and are published in the proceedings. The three Young Engineer Award winners received a prize money, the Best Paper Award winner received a prize money and an invitation to the PCIM Asia 2017 Conference in Shanghai.

The winner of the PCIM Europe Best Paper Award is:

Nicolas Quentin, Sagem - Ampere Labs, France

A Large Input Voltage Range 1 MHz Full Converter with 95% Peak Efficiency for Aircraft Applications

Among the winners of the PCIM Europe Young Engineer Award are:

Christian Felgemacher, University of Kassel, Germany

Benefits of Increased Cosmic Radiation Robustness of SiC Semiconductors in large Power-Converters

Stefan Hain, University of Bayreuth, Germany

New Ultra Fast Short Circuit Detection Method Without Using the Desaturation Process of the Power Semiconductor

Christoph Marxgut, Helbling Technik, Germany

A Generic Topology for Electrical Energy Storage Systems

PCIM Europe 2016 Best Paper Abstract:

A Large Input Voltage Range 1 MHz Full Converter with 95% Peak Efficiency for Aircraft Applications

Nicolas Quentin, SAGEM, F; Remi Perrin, INSA de Lyon, F; Christian Martin, Charles Joubert, Ampere Laboratory, F; Louis Grimaud, Safran Group, F; Rolando Burgos, Dushan Boroyevich, CPES/Virginia Tech, USA

This digest presents a design methodology of a 50 W isolated DC/DC converter serving as a power supply for aircraft equipment like a FADEC (Full Authority Digital Electronics Control). The particularity of this work is the design of a full converter regarding two antagonistic requirements, which are wide input voltage and high efficiency.

PCIM Europe 2016 Young Engineer Award Abstracts:

Benefits of Increased Cosmic Radiation Robustness of SiC Semiconductors in large Power-Converters

Christian Felgemacher, Samuel Araujo Vasconcelos, Christian Nöding, Peter Zacharias, University of Kassel, Germany

Cosmic radiation induced single-event-burnout is a known failure mode for power semiconductors. To achieve high reliability derating of the maximum voltage applied to the semiconductors is common. Measurements of the voltage dependent failure rate of SiC MOSFETs have shown that SiC devices can be operated with less voltage derating. The possible advantage this brings for applications such as photovoltaic inverters is investigated in this paper.

New Ultra Fast Short Circuit Detection Method Without Using the Desaturation Process of the Power Semiconductor

Stefan Hain, Mark-M. Bakran, University of Bayreuth, Germany

This paper presents a new short circuit detection method for power semiconductor devices by monitoring the di/dt and gate voltage behaviour. It can be shown that this method is able to detect a low inductive hard switching fault within 20ns, after the fault can be distinguished from a normal turn-on process. Furthermore, the ability to detect fault under load conditions reliably with low and high short circuit inductances is demonstrated.

A Generic Topology for Electrical Energy Storage Systems

Christoph Marxgut, Helbling Technik, Germany

This paper presents an electrical storage system which is aimed for the recuperation of energy in electrical drives. The topology is based on a combination of a multi-level and a bidirectional boost converter which enable the application of low-voltage energy storage components. Due to its generic structure, the topology can be adapted to different voltage, power, and energy levels which makes it interesting for various applications.