IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO.

1, JANUARY 2013

289

A Comparative Performance Study of an Interleaved Boost Converter Using Commercial Si and SiC Diodes for PV Applications
Carl Ngai-Man Ho, Senior Member, IEEE, Hannes Breuninger, Member, IEEE, Sami Pettersson, Member, IEEE, Gerardo Escobar, Senior Member, IEEE, and Francisco Canales, Member, IEEE

AbstractA performance comparison of an interleaved boost converter (IBC) using Si and SiC diodes for photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion systems is presented in this paper. The performance attributes under investigation include the semiconductor device behavior, thermal requirement, system efciency, and power density. The IBC is designed to sustain the dc-link voltage in the energy conversion system and to provide the maximum power point tracking in the PV system. Due to the absence of reverse recovery current in SiC Schottky diodes, low switching losses are generated in diodes and switches. This benet results in a higher system efciency and smaller cooling system design requirement. As a benet, the volume and weight of the heatsink can be further reduced. Furthermore, behaviors of the power semiconductors, which will impact the performance in the system, are discussed in the paper. The validity of the analysis is conrmed experimentally with a 2.5-kW IBC prototype with relatively wide power and input voltage operating range. The overall performance of the IBC prototype using Si and SiC diodes is summarized in a table for easy comparison. Index TermsDiode, interleaved boost converter (IBC), MOSFET, photovoltaic (PV), power semiconductor, SiC.

TABLE I TYPICAL SPECIFICATION OF A PREREGULATOR FOR SINGLE-PHASE PV INVERTERS

Parameter Input voltage Output voltage Min. operating frequency Max. ambient temperature Value 125V 650V 400V 16kHz 50C Parameter Max. input voltage Max. rated power Max. input current ripple Max. junction temperature Value 800V 2.5kW 10% of I in, max 125C

I. INTRODUCTION

HOTOVOLTAIC (PV) inverters are widely used in residential applications as an interface between PV panels and low-voltage distribution grid. A PV inverter generally consists of a dcac inverter and a dcdc converter [1][5]. The inverter is used to feed the dc power into the grid network. Among various inverter topologies, two-level H-bridge inverters and three-level inverters are usually adopted in industry due to simple circuit implementation and high efciency, respectively [1][7]. In particular, for a 220-V single-phase grid, the minimum dc-link voltage requirement for the inverter is 350 V.

Manuscript received December 22, 2011; revised March 16, 2012 and April 15, 2012; accepted April 16, 2012. Date of current version September 11, 2012. This paper was presented in part at 8th International Conference on Power Electronics ECCE-Asia, Jeju, Korea, May 30June 3, 2011. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor T. Suntio. C. N.-M. Ho, S. Pettersson, G. Escobar, and F. Canales are with the ABB Corporate Research Ltd., CH-5405 Baden-D attwil, Switzerland (e-mail: carl.ho@ch.abb.com; sami.pettersson@ch.abb.com; gerardo.escobar@ch.abb. com; francisco.canales@ch.abb.com). H. Breuninger was with ABB Corporate Research Ltd., CH-5405 BadenD attwil, Switzerland. He is now with Brose, 96103 Hallstadt, Germany (e-mail: hannes_breuninger@online.de). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPEL.2012.2197830

This voltage level guarantees that the input voltage of the inverter is higher than the peak value of the grid voltage. However, PV panels do not provide constant output dc voltage for a long period of time. For instance, in single-phase PV inverters for residential applications, a typical design specication of the output voltage range of the PV string is from 125 to 650 V. It is well known that this variation depends on sun irradiation and panel surface temperature. Thus, a dcdc converter, referred as preregulator, is usually connected between the panels and the inverter to sustain the dc-link voltage. Besides the input voltage range for maximum power point (MPP) tracking, the absolute maximum input voltage is specied for designing PV inverters. It is used to avoid the open-circuit voltage of the PV panels from damaging the semiconductors in the inverter. Maximum input current ripple is another important parameter for designing PV inverters. As it is well known that the MPP of PV panels is at a very narrow current range, the input current ripple of the PV inverter has to be reasonably small to increase the MPP tracking accuracy. These parameters in the inverter design specication are based on the consideration of the PV panel output characteristics. Table I shows a typical design specication of 2.5-kW PV preregulators. Fig. 1 shows a simplied PV energy conversion system with a sketch of a conventional controller for PV preregulators. The voltage source inverter is used to guarantee the output current quality and manage the dc-link capacitor voltage VDC . The preregulator executes the function of MPPT by controlling the PV panel voltage and current. From topology point of view, two identical boost units are used in the circuit. This conguration is named interleaved boost converter (IBC), which is one of the most appealing options for PV applications. The reason for this is that the input current ripple is minimized by forcing a 180 phase shift operation between the two switching cells, which results in a ripple cancellation [3]. However, the main drawback is that semiconductors with high breakdown voltage

0885-8993/$31.00 2012 IEEE

290

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

IPV Li Ci
+ DB

DB

L1 CDC
+ -

L0 C0
+ + -

VPV

ILi
SB SB

VDC

VSI

VG

MPPT Vref + Voltage loop Iref

Fig. 1.

+ +

Current balancing Current loop e

ed

PWMs u1=1-(e+ed)/Vdc u2=1-(e-ed)/Vdc

Two-stage PV inverter topology using a two-phase IBC with conventional controller.

have to be used due to a possible high input voltage coming from the panels. In consequence, the system suffers from the reverse recovery loss in the high voltage class silicon (Si) diodes (DB) and the commutating loss in the switches (SB). Threelevel converter conguration has also been proposed to deal with the high voltage across the semiconductors [8]. With this topology, 600-V devices, which present good switching characteristics, may be utilized. The switching waveforms are shown in Fig. 17(a) of the Appendix. However, the main disadvantage of this topology is that the operating current of each semiconductor is double compared to that of the IBC. Thus, the conduction loss is higher than in the IBC according to the rule I 2 R. A new type of Schottky diode with silicon carbide (SiC) technology has been commercialized in the last decade. The manufacturers claim that the main advantage of the SiC diodes is zero reverse recovery [9], [10]. This characteristic makes them appropriate for high switching frequency converters. And thus, two conjectures are made for converter design with such devices. First, a higher system efciency can be expected due to the lower semiconductor switching losses with the same switching frequency. Second, a higher system power density can be achieved using either smaller inductors with higher switching frequency or a smaller heatsink with xed switching frequency. Therefore, a comparative study to exhibit the performance improvement in a real system would be of a great interest. There have been reported in the power electronics literature several comparative studies of the performance between Si diode and SiC diode at the device level [11][13] and at the circuit level [14][21]. In most of these papers, a low-voltage lowpower rated power factor correction (PFC) is the most popular application to demonstrate the advantages of SiC diodes. In general terms, it has been shown that the SiC diodes can bring attractive benets to the power supply industry. Furthermore, the trend of the use of SiC diodes is toward the high switching frequency [18], [19], e.g., 1 MHz, and high-power [20], [21], e.g. 55 kW, applications. The main focuses of those comparisons are the device behavior and the semiconductor losses. From the device point of view, there are large differences in the use of either Si or SiC diodes. However, from the system efciency point of view, the semiconductor loss is only a part of the total

loss. Moreover, the testing platforms were not optimized for comparison, and thus, it is not possible to maximize the benets of the devices. As a result, the advantages brought by the SiC diodes have not been fully demonstrated in the performance of the evaluated systems. Furthermore, to the best knowledge of the authors, evaluations have not been presented, so far, in preregulators for PV applications. This paper presents a comparative study of the use of commercial Si and SiC diodes in an IBC for PV applications. That is, two converters are analyzed: a converter using SiC diodes, referred as Si/SiC system, and a converter using Si diodes, referred as Si/Si system. Issues addressed here include 1) the static and switching characteristics of two diodes with a CoolMOS device; 2) the efciency of the system within the full operating range; and 3) the system power density. The validity of the analysis is veried experimentally with a 2.5-kW IBC prototype. Two cooling systems are designed: one for the Si/Si system and one for the Si/SiC system. The design of the cooling systems has been restricted to keep the CoolMOS device at the same junction temperature in both systems. This is to avoid the change of conduction loss of the CoolMOSs that may inuence the results of the comparison. The system design procedure is based on the guideline in [22]. Thus, a platform is set to have a fair evaluation of the performance of both the Si/Si and Si/SiC implementations. II. SEMICONDUCTOR CHARACTERIZATION Device characterization is the most straightforward way to evaluate the semiconductor losses in a converter. The losses are mainly divided into conduction loss and switching loss. The losses can be extracted by two types of characterizations, namely static and dynamic characterization. Converter designers can optimize the system by selecting the most suitable semiconductor devices and gate drive circuits based on the extracted loss information. In this paper, the CoolMOS, IPW90R120C3 by Inneon was selected as active switch. The rst consideration of the device is the breakdown voltage. According to the specication in Table I, the breakdown voltage of the devices cannot be lower than the maximum input voltage, 800 V. Moreover, this is due to

HO et al.: COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AN INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER

291

TABLE II PARAMETERS OF THE EVALUATED DEVICES

40
Parameter Manufacturer Part No. Type Breakdown Voltage Rated Current Max. Junction Temperature Thermal Resistance, J-C Package T R V I Symbol Devices CoolMOS Infineon IPW90R120C3 CoolMOS 900 23 150 0.3 TO-247 Si Diode ST Microelectronics STTH1210D Ultrafast recovery 1000 12 175 1.9 TO-220 SiC Diode Cree C2D20120D SiC Schottky Unit

Saturation Characteristics @ Vgs = 10V

Tc = 25C Ron=108m 35

Tc = 75C Ron=156m

30

Drain Current, Id (A)

1200 11 175 0.48 TO-247

V A C K/W

25 Tc = 125C Ron=250m 20

15

10

Forward Current, I (A)

the fact that the device provides a very low on-state resistance at low junction temperature. Thus, the conduction loss is relatively low compared with other Si technology-based active switches, such as insulated gate bipolar transistors. Furthermore, this device can switch at very high di/dt and dv/dt. Hence, it would form a very fast switching cell if combined with a SiC diode to minimize the switching losses [10], [23]. A diode benchmarking has been done to select a Si-based diode to be comparable to the SiC diode. The selection was based on two criteria: similar electrical ratings to the SiC diode and the suitability of the IBC with the specication in Table I. The details of the benchmarking results are given in the Appendix. Eventually, two sets of switching cells have been evaluated in the system, both combining the CoolMOS device with either the Si ultrafast diode (Si/Si) or the SiC Schottky diode (Si/SiC). All devices have been tested in both static and dynamic measurements to evaluate the losses and to design the appropriate heatsinks. Table II shows the key parameters of the devices under test. These values have been collected from the corresponding manufacturer datasheets. A. Static Characterization The main objective of carrying out the measurements for static characteristics is to determine the conduction loss of the specic devices, which will be used in the power electronic systems. The Tektronix 371A curve tracer is used to extract the parameters from the semiconductor devices. Fig. 2 shows the output characteristics of the CoolMOS device where a strong temperature dependence can be observed. Consequently, the heatsink should be designed to limit the maximum junction temperature for CoolMOS at 75 C to reduce the conduction loss, and thus to guarantee a good performance of the overall system. Fig. 3 shows the forward characteristics of the tested Si and SiC diodes. Notice that both devices are temperature dependent, but the SiC diode has an interesting feature in contrast to the Si diode. The Si diode has a negative temperature coefcient, meaning that if the device is heated up, then the conduction loss of the device reduces. In contrast, the SiC diode has a positive temperature coefcient at high-current operation, which is higher than 2 A. By comparing both diodes at the same reference point, i.e., 10 A and 75 C, it is observed that the Si diode has a lower conduction loss than the SiC diode. In fact, the

0 0 2 4 Drain-Source Voltage, Vds (V) 6 8

Fig. 2.

CoolMOS output characteristics at different temperatures.

Forward Characteristics Si vs SiC diodes Pulse Width = 250s Tc = 125C 12 Tc = 75C Tc = 25C Tc = 125C Tc = 75C Tc = 25C

14

10

6 SiC - 25C SiC - 75C SiC - 125C 2 Si - 25C Si - 75C 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Si - 125C 2.5

Forward Voltage, V (V)

Fig. 3. Forward characteristics of the Si and SiC diodes at different junction temperatures.

turn-on voltages of the Si and SiC diodes are 1.36 and 1.62 V, respectively. However, notice that the turn-on voltage difference at low-current operating range is not signicant. B. Dynamic Characterization In practice, the dynamic characteristics of semiconductors can be extracted by double-pulse tests [24]. Based on the results of this characterization, the switching loss information and

292

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

Fig. 5.

Si and SiC diode reverse recovery switching waveforms.

Switching Losses on Devices, CoolMOS + Si vs SiC Diode, Conditions @ 400V,10A,75 C ,10V,10 ,10

1200
Switch,on, Ultra Fast diode Switch,off, Ultra Fast diode

1000

Diode,off, Ultra Fast diode Switch,on, SiC diode

Switching Loss, E (Ws)

800

Switch,off, SiC diode Diode,off, SiC diode

600

400

200

Fig. 4.

CoolMOS turn-on switching waveforms.

0 0 5 10 Drain Current, iD (A) 15 20

switching behavior of the semiconductors are determined. According to the design specication in Table I, the corresponding dc output voltage during operation of the IBC is 400 V for each switching cell. Hence, 400 V has been considered as the dc testing voltage for measurements. Figs. 4 and 5 show the turn-on and turn-off switching waveforms of the switching cells. As it can be seen in Fig. 4(b), the CoolMOS turn-off waveforms for both switching cells are very similar. This leads to the conclusion that the diode type in the basic switching cell does not affect the turn-off performance of the CoolMOS device. In contrast, Fig. 4(a) shows that the performance of the turn-on waveforms is quite different, which depends on the reverse recovery behavior of the diodes. The reverse recovery current increases the switching loss in the Si diode and also reects these characteristics on the drain current of the CoolMOS device; this is called commutating loss. As a consequence of the high reverse recovery current peak Ir r and the long transient time of the Si diode, the turn-on loss of

Fig. 6.

Switching energy loss chart.

the CoolMOS device in the Si/Si switching cell is much larger than that of the Si/SiC switching cell. In addition, the reverse recovery current peak and the transient duration of the Si diodes strongly depend on the operating current, the di/dt, and the junction temperature. SiC diodes have zero reverse recovery in principle, but still a small current overshoot can be observed due to the energy swing between the stray inductance and the parasitic capacitance of the SiC diode, which is only dependent on the di/dt [24]. Fig. 6 shows the information of the losses for different operating currents starting from 2 to 18 A. The solid lines and dashed lines represent the losses of the Si/Si and Si/SiC switching cells, respectively. Notice that the turn-off losses for both

HO et al.: COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AN INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER

293

TABLE III LOSS BREAKDOWN OF SEMICONDUCTORS IN IBC AT CRITICAL CONDITION

Losses in IBC 140

Condition: V = 125 V, P = 2.5 kW, f Conduction loss Switch Turn-on loss Turn-off loss Total loss Conduction loss Diode Reverse recovery loss Total loss Total semiconductor loss

= 16 kHz P P P P P P P P

Switching cell Si/Si 11.3 8.6 2.4 22.3 4.4 5.1 9.5 63.6 Si/SiC 11.3 2.9 2.4 16.6 5.1 0.6 5.8 44.7

Unit W W W W W W W W

120

Si Diode
Loss, W

100

80

switching cells are very similar, and that the difference of the diode reverse recovery losses is obviously very large. It can be observed that the reverse recovery loss of the SiC diode is quite constant within the full measured current range, the loss being around 40 J at the 10-A testing points. On the other hand, the Si diode suffers seriously from the reverse recovery current problem, the energy loss being 380 J at the same testing current. In other words, there is almost a 90% switching loss reduction in the diode due to the use of the SiC diode. Besides, the turn-on loss in the switch reduces from 610 to 210 J at 10 A by using the SiC diode instead of the Si diode. The total switching loss of the Si/SiC switching cell in one switching cycle is one-third of the Si diode counterpart. The energy chart obviously shows the main advantage of the SiC diodes, which is the low switching loss. It is important to mention that the switching behavior comparison has been carried out using the same gate resistance, i.e., assuming the same di/dt. However, in practice, the Si/SiC switching cell can operate faster with a smaller gate resistance, and therefore, the turn-on loss of the switch could be further reduced. This possibility is not included in the present comparison, as it involves electromagnetic interference issues, which are out of the scope of this study. C. Semiconductor Losses in the System The semiconductor energy loss extraction is used to determine the semiconductor loss in power electronics systems. Moreover, the cooling system can be designed based on the information. The heatsink is designed to keep the maximum junction temperature of the CoolMOS devices at 75 C. For this purpose, the semiconductor losses have to be determined at the critical thermal conditions, i.e., at 125-V input voltage and 2.5-kW output power. The steady-state characteristics of an IBC system have already been well documented in [22], [25], and [26]. As a reference for the critical condition, the average Iavg , minimum Im in , and maximum Im ax currents in the switch are 8.27, 10, and 11.73 A, respectively. Table III summarizes the loss breakdown of the semiconductors in the IBC with Si and SiC diodes at the critical condition. The main improvements by using SiC diodes are on PM on and PD rr , where PM on is the turn-on loss of the switches, and PD rr is the reverse recovery loss of the diodes. In comparison, PM on using SiC diodes is one-third of the one using Si diodes and PD rr using the SiC diodes is almost one-tenth of the

60

SiC Diode

40 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 Switching Frequency, kHz

Fig. 7. Losses in the IBC with switching frequency variation.

one using Si diodes. As a result, the total semiconductor loss reduction is around 19 W because of SiC diodes. D. Switching Frequency Evaluation It is clear, from the losses breakdown table, that the main advantage of the SiC diodes is the semiconductor switching loss reduction. This implies that the optimal switching frequency may be larger in the SiC-based system. Fig. 7 shows the calculated system losses of the IBC using the two different diodes under study and using the operating switching frequency as a running parameter. Optimized inductors are considered at each frequency point. The inductor design procedure is based on [22]. It shows that the optimal switching frequencies for the Si and SiC diodes are 10 and 11 kHz, respectively. However, to avoid generating acoustic noise, the minimum switching frequency for the application must be 16 kHz, which is selected as the operating frequency in both cases. Accordingly, the inductors are the same in both cases as well. III. COOLING SYSTEM EVALUATION The cooling system requirement for each IBC is designed based on the semiconductor losses shown in Table III. The junction temperature in both systems is set at 75 C in order to keep the conduction loss of the CoolMOS devices low. The heatsink size is different in both cases due to the different semiconductor losses. Fig. 8 shows the temperature distribution simulation results using the (a) Si and (b) SiC diodes. The criteria to design the heatsinks are as follows: 1) the junction temperature of the CoolMOS devices and the ambient temperature are set at 75 C and 50 C, respectively; 2) a SUNON KDE1206PTV2 and an array of two SUNON KDE1204PKV2 fans are used for the Si/Si and the Si/SiC

294

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

TABLE IV SIMULATING CONDITIONS AND RESULTS OF THE COOLING SYSTEM

Parameter Power loss Thermal resistance, junction to case Thermal resistance, case to heatsink Ambient temperature Heatsink temperature Junction temperature Thermal resistance, Heatsink *This value is estimated. Symbol P R R T T T R Si/Si CoolMOS 22.3 0.3 0.24 50 67.3 79.7* 0.247 Si Diode 9.5 1.9 0.45 50 65.4 98.1* 16.6 0.3 0.24 50 67.8 76.4* 0.41 Si/SiC CoolMOS SiC Diode 11.6 0.48 0.24 50 60 69* Unit W K/W K/W C C C K/W

Fig. 8. Cooling system simulation for CoolMOSs with (a) Si diodes and (b) SiC diodes.

Fan Characteristics
0.2
Fig. 10. Heatsinks size comparison.

Static Pressure (Inch-H2O)

0.15

0.1

0.05
KDE1204PKV2 x 2

KDE1206PTV2

0 0 5 10 Airflow (CFM)
Fig. 9. Fan characteristics for the two cooling systems.

15

20

systems, respectively. Sketches of the disposition of both arrays of fans are shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b). As observed in Fig. 9, the characteristics of both arrays of fans are very similar; 3) the material and structure of the heatsinks are basically the same. By adjusting the height of the ns and the length of the heatsink, different thermal resistances for the cooling systems can be achieved. A summary of the thermal simulation results is shown in Table IV. Notice that the junction temperatures of the CoolMOS devices on those two heat sinks are quite similar and close to 75 C.

Fig. 11.

Optimized IBC prototype.

Fig. 10 shows the physical size comparison between the two designed heatsinks. The total volume and weight of the heatsink for the Si/Si system are 1031 cm3 and 1185 g, respectively, while the volume and weight of the heatsink for the Si/SiC system are 388 cm3 and 470 g, respectively. As a result, there is a 60% reduction in the dimensions of the Si/SiC heatsink with respect to the Si/Si heatsink.

HO et al.: COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AN INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER

295

IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATIONS A 2.5-kW hardware platform has been built, as shown in Fig. 11. The hardware including the measurement board, the main power board, the gate driving circuits, the CoolMOS devices, and the inductors is common for both Si/Si and Si/SiC systems in the tests. The main differences are the diode type used, the component placement, and the cooling system design, as it was shown in Fig. 8. A. Testing System Conguration The goal of the comparison is to verify that the Si/SiC IBC gives a higher system efciency than the Si/Si IBC even though the former uses a smaller heatsink. To determine the differences between both approaches, efciency characterization studies have to be performed. Efciency characterization of PV inverters includes MPPT efciency and static converter efciency [27], [28]. On the one hand, the MPPT efciency mainly depends on the dynamic response of the MPPT controller, i.e., the ability to track the MPP under variable environmental conditions, and negative effects caused by the power uctuation, the switching ripple, which may produce uctuations of the operating point around the MPP. Normally, the dynamic response of the semiconductors is considerably much higher than the MPPT control bandwidth. And thus, using the Si or SiC diodes does not have an impact on the MPPT efciency. On the other hand, the static efciency refers to the ability of the converter to keep operating at the MPP at constant environmental conditions during a given period of time. Clearly, the operating point can be anywhere within the specied ranges of the input voltage and the output power. To characterize the whole system in terms of its static efciency, a PV simulator and a dc electronic load have been connected to the IBC systems under test. An open-loop controller has been considered for the IBC, where the duty ratio is manually assigned. The measuring points could be set easily and accurately by changing the PV curve, the duty cycle, and the output resistance. As the application of the prototype is for PV energy conversion, two key standard efciency measurement methods have been adopted, namely, the European efciency and the California Energy Commission (CEC) efciency [27][30]. The denitions of those are as follows: European efciency EUR = 0.03 5% + 0.06 10% + 0.13 20% + 0.1 30% + 0.48 50% + 0.2 100% . CEC efciency CEC = 0.04 10% + 0.05 20% + 0.12 30% + 0.21 50% + 0.53 75% + 0.05 100% . (2) (1)

Fig. 12.

Operating points of static efciency measurement.

Fig. 13. Block diagram of the experimental setup for static efciency measurement. TABLE V MEASURED TEMPERATURES
TA Si/Si Si/SiC 30 27 T H,Diode 43 42 T H,Switch 49 46 T J,Diode 65* 48* T J,Switch 61* 55* Unit C C

*This value is estimated.

dc electronic load, Chroma 63204. The experiments were carried out by open-loop-based control. For this, the duty ratio was assigned through a computer and a DSP board to the converter to manually reach the MPP. The efciencies were directly measured using a power analyzer, Yokogawa WT3000. A simplied connecting block diagram is shown in Fig. 13. B. Experimental Results Table V shows the measured temperature results when the systems operate at the critical point, i.e., at 125-V input voltage and 2.5-kW output power. The measured ambient temperatures are 30 and 27 C for the Si/Si and Si/SiC systems, respectively. The case temperatures of the diodes and the CoolMOS devices are almost the same in both cases. However, the junction temperatures are different; the estimated operating temperature of the Si diodes is about 17 C higher than that of the SiC diodes. The reason for this is that the switching loss of the Si diode is higher, but the thermal resistance of the heatsink for the Si/Si system is

The PV simulator, Spitzenberger & Spies PVS7000, has been used to provide the tested input voltage levels (125, 250, and 350 V) for the IBC measurements. To evaluate the IBC performance based on the aforementioned standard requirements, 21 testing points have been considered in the measurements. Fig. 12 shows three testing points for the PV preregulator efciency characterization. And the energy was dissipated by the

296

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

340 320 300 98

98.5 98.5 98 97.5 97 96.5 96 97.5 97 96.5 96 500 1000 1500 2000 Output Power (W) 97.5 97 2500 98 98.5

100 99 98 97 96 95 94

European efficiency 100.0 99.5 99.0

CoolMOS + Si Diode CoolMOS + SiC Diode

Input Voltage (V)

280 260 240 220 200 180 160 140

Efficiency (%)

93 92 91 90

98.5 98.0 97.5 97.0 96.5 96.0 125

(a)
340 320 300 99 98.5 98 98.5 98 97.5 97 96.5 96 98 98 97.5 97.5 1000 1500 2000 2500 Output Power (W) 98.5 99 99 100 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90

Input Voltage (V)

280 260 240 220 200 180 160 140 500

150

175

200 225 250 275 Input voltage (V)

300

325

350

(a)
CEC efficiency 100.0 99.5 99.0
CoolMOS + Si Diode CoolMOS + SiC Diode

(b)
Fig. 14. Experimental efciency graphs of the IBC prototype using (a) Si diodes and (b) SiC diodes.
Efficiency (%)

98.5 98.0 97.5 97.0 96.5 96.0 125

340 320 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.6 0.8 300 280 260 240 220 200 180 160 140 1 500 0.8 0.6 0.6 1000 1500 2000 Output Power (W) 0.4

3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 2500 0

Input Voltage (V)

150

175

200 225 250 275 Input voltage (V)

300

325

350

(b)
Fig. 16. Efciency of the IBC: (a) European, and (b) CEC.

Fig. 15.

Efciency difference between Fig. 13 (a) and (b).

lower. In fact, the junction temperature of the Si diodes is higher than that of the SiC diodes, even though the case temperatures are the same. The junction temperature of the CoolMOS devices in the Si/Si system is slightly higher than in the Si/SiC system. Fig. 14 shows the measured efciency charts under the whole voltage and power operating condition range. In the graphs, the x-axis is the output power of the system and the y -axis is the input voltage. Both charts show that the system provides higher efciencies during operation at high voltage and high power. In this operation region, the inductor dc currents and ripple currents are relatively low, and as a consequence, both the semiconductor losses and the inductor core losses are reduced. In contrast, the efciency behavior is deteriorated when the system operates at the region of low power and low voltage. In this case, the switching losses due to diode reverse recovery are reduced as the system operates in the discontinuous conduction mode region, but the core losses of the inductors dominate in the total loss of the system since the inductors still need to deal with the high-amplitude current ripple.

Fig. 15 shows the efciency difference between the Si/Si and Si/SiC systems. It can be seen that the difference is around 0.4 0.8% within the whole input voltage range and in most parts of the operation region except for output powers lower than 250 W. Fig. 16 illustrates the comparisons of both systems considering (a) the European efciency, and (b) the CEC efciency. As observed, in these two efciency comparisons, the Si/SiC system is better than the Si/Si by 0.40.8%. This is more evident in the European efciency. V. CONCLUSION A comparative study about the use of Si and SiC diodes in the implementation of an IBC for PV applications has been presented. The study was supported by the measurements of the static and switching characteristics of both Si/Si and Si/SiC switching cells. Furthermore, the optimal operation of the systems considering maximum efciency was also determined as part of the study. The optimal frequency was found to be below

HO et al.: COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AN INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER

297

TABLE VI SUMMARY OF THE COMPARISONS

Parameter Efficiency Heatsink volume Heatsink weight Junction temperature Inductor volume Inductor weight @T A =30C Condition @2.5kW, 125V Si/Si 96.7 1031 1185 61/69 338 1142 Si/SiC 97.3 388 470 55/48 338 1142 Unit % cm3 g C cm g

TABLE VII EVALUATED 600-V DIODES

Manufacturer Part no. Type Breakdown Voltage Rated Current Fairchild F08S60S Ultra Fast 600V 8A Power Integrations LQA08TC600 Q-Series 600V 8A Cree CSD08060 SiC Schottky 600V 8A

(a)
Forward Characteristics @125C

16

SiC Schottky

the audible frequency, and thus, it was decided to evaluate both systems at 16 kHz instead. The systems were designed and evaluated keeping fair operating conditions such as the same semiconductor junction temperature and the same passive devices. To complete the study, a 2.5-kW prototype of the IBC with two optimized cooling systems was implemented for testing the two types of diode technology. Results showed that, in terms of efciency, volume, and weight, the converter using the SiC diodes, referred as the Si/SiC system, performed better than the converter using the Si diodes, referred as the Si/Si system. The combined Si/SiC system provided a signicantly higher efciency and a higher power density by the simple one-to-one diode replacement plus a system optimization. The evaluation has been summarized in the form of a table for an easy comparison in Table VI. APPENDIX TRADEOFF BETWEEN SWITCHING LOSS AND CONDUCTION LOSS OF DIODES In low-voltage, low-power, and high-switching-frequency applications, e.g., PFC, fast recovery diodes are required to reduce the switching losses. However, there is a tradeoff for siliconbased diodes, a diode which gives low reverse recovery current but generates high forward voltage. Therefore, the diode selection for designing a converter should be based on the overall performance of the converter. In order to verify the argument, a simple diode characteristic comparison will be given next. Table VII lists three 600-V diodes. They are from different manufacturers, but the breakdown voltage and the rated current are the same according to the corresponding datasheets. F08S60S (ultrafast) and LQA08TC600 (Q-series) are Si-based diodes and they are also claimed to have a very short reverse recovery time. CSD08060 is the same type of SiC diode as in Table II, but with 600-V class. Fig. 17(a) shows the measured

14 12
Forward Current (A)

Ultra Fast

Q-Series

10 8 6 4 2 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

Forward Voltage (V)

(b)
Fig. 17. Comparisons of 600-V diodes (a) reverse recovery current and (b) forward characteristic.

turn-off waveforms of these three diodes. On the one hand, the ultrafast diode needs 60 ns to achieve zero current and its peak reverse recovery current is 5 A. On the other hand, both parameters, the reverse recovery current and time, of another Si-based diode, Q-series, are also half of the ultrafast diode. And its switching behavior is close to the SiC diode. However, the Q-series diode has higher forward voltage than the other two diodes. The measured forward characteristics are shown in Fig. 17(b). It can be concluded that there is a tradeoff between the switching loss and the conduction loss for Si-based diodes. The diode selection should depend on the switching frequency and the current owing through the diode in a converter design.

298

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

TABLE VIII SI-BASED DIODE BENCHMARKING

Parameter Manufacturer Model Breakdown voltage Rated current Forward voltage Peak Irr Recovery time RthJC @10A, 150C @8A, 100C, 200A/us Condition ST Microelectronics STTH1210D 1000 V 12 A 1.2 V 14 A 170 ns 1.9 C/W BYT 12PI1000 1000 V 12 A 1.6 V 15 A 650 ns 4 C/W Value International Rectifier 10ETF12PbF 1200 V 10 A 1.2 V 16 A 210 ns 1.5 C/W Fairchild Semiconductor MUR8100E 1000 V 8A 1.5 V 13 A 120 ns 2 C/W

Furthermore, the comparison also shows that the SiC diode is the optimal solution from the performance point of view. SI-BASED DIODE BENCHMARKING Semiconductor benchmarking was the rst step in this comparative study. Some commercial diodes have been evaluated, which are available from different manufacturers. The ratings of all devices are comparable to the SiC diodes, i.e., 1200 V and 11 A, as shown in Table II. Besides, they are all reasonable for the IBC application. Table VIII shows a summary of the benchmarking of the selected diodes. The values of these diodes were obtained from the corresponding manufacturer datasheets. It can be seen in Table VIII that the explained tradeoff is valid between STTH1210D and MUR8100E. However, the difference is not dramatically large. It can be expected that the nal converter performance with these devices will be more or less the same. Thus, STTH1210D was selected due to the similar rated current with the evaluated SiC diodes. REFERENCES
[1] S. B. Kjaer, J. K. Pedersen, and F. Blaabjerg, A review of single-phase grid-connected inverters for photovoltaic modules, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 12921306, Sep./Oct. 2005. [2] Q. Li and P. Wolfs, A review of the single phase photovoltaic module integrated converter topologies with three different DC link congurations, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 13201333, May 2008. [3] D.-Y. Jung, Y.-H. Ji, S.-H. Park, Y.-C. Jung, and C.-Y. Won, Interleaved soft-switching boost converter for photovoltaic power-generation system, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 11371145, Apr. 2011. [4] N. Femia, G. Petrone, G. Spagnuolo, and M. Vitelli, A technique for improving P&O MPPT performances of double-stage grid-connected photovoltaic systems, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 56, no. 11, pp. 4473 4482, Nov. 2009. [5] B. Yang, W. Li, Y. Zhao, and X. He, Analytical design and analysis of a grid-connected photovoltaic power system, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 9921000, Apr. 2010. [6] H. Xiao and S. Xie, Transformerless split-inductor neutral point clamped three-level PV grid-connected inverter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 17991808, Apr. 2012. [7] S. Daher, J. Schmid, and F. L. M. Antunes, Multilevel inverter topologies for stand-alone PV systems, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 27032712, Jul. 2008. [8] M. Frisch and T. Ern o, Symmetrical boost concept for solar applications up to 1000 V, Bodos Power Systems, Laboe, Germany, Mar. 2009, p. 31.

[9] Q. Zhang, R. Callanan, M. K. Das, S.-H. Ryu, A. K. Agarwal, and J. W. Palmour, SiC power devices for microgrids, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 28892896, Dec. 2010. [10] L. Lorenz, G. Deboy, and I. Zverev, Matched pair of CoolMOS transistor with SiC-Schottky diodeadvantages in application, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 12651272, Sep./Oct. 2004. [11] M. Bhatnagar and B. J. Baliga, Comparison of 6H-SiC, 3C-SiC, and Si for power devices, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 645655, Mar. 1993. [12] R. Singh, J. A. Cooper, M. R. Melloch, T. P. Chow, and J. W. Palmour, SiC power Schottky and PiN diodes, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 665672, Apr. 2002. [13] B. Ozpineci and L. M. Tolbert, Characterization of SiC Schottky diodes at different temperatures, IEEE Power Electron. Lett., vol. 99, no. 2, pp. 5457, Jun. 2003. [14] A. R. Hefner, R. Singh, J. Lai, D. W. Berning, S. Bouch e, and C. Chapuy, SiC power diodes provide breakthrough performance for a wide range of applications, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 273280, Mar. 2001. [15] G. Spiazzi, S. Buso, M. Citron, M. Corradin, and R. Pierobon, Performance evaluation of a Schottky SiC power diode in a boost PFC application, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 12491253, Nov. 2003. [16] A. Elasser, M. H. Kheraluwala, M. Ghezzo, R. L. Steigerwald, N. A. Evers, J. Kretchmer, and T. P. Chow, A comparative evaluation of new silicon carbide diodes and state-of-the-art silicon diodes for power electronic applications, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 915921, Jul. 2003. [17] M. M. Hernando, A. Fern andez, J. Garc a, D. G. Lamar, and M. Rasc on, Comparing Si and SiC diode performance in commercial AC-to-DC rectiers with power-factor correction, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 705707, Apr. 2006. [18] A. M. Abou-Alfotouh, A. V. Radun, H. Chang, and C. Winterhalter, A 1-MHz hard-switched silicon carbide DCDC converter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 880889, Jul. 2006. [19] M. Schweizer, T. Friedli, and J. W. Kolar, Comparison and implementation of a 3-level NPC voltage link back-to-back converter with SiC and Si diodes, in Proc. 25th Annu. IEEE Appl. Power Electron. Conf. Expo., 2010, pp. 15271533. [20] B. Ozpineci, M. Chinthavali, A. Kashyap, L. M. Tolbert, and A. Mantooth, A 55 kW three-phase inverter with Si IGBTs and SiC Schottky diodes, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 278285, Jan./Feb. 2009. [21] M. Chinthavali, P. Otaduy, and B. Ozpineci, Comparison of Si and SiC inverters for IPM traction drive, in Proc. IEEE Energy Convers. Congr. Expo., 2010, pp. 33603365. [22] C. Ho, H. Breuninger, S. Pettersson, G. Escobar, L. Serpa, and A. Coccia, Practical design and implementation procedure of an interleaved boost converter using SiC diodes for PV applications, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 28352845, Jun. 2012. [23] Z. Liang, B. Lu, J. D. van Wyk, and F. C. Lee, Integrated CoolMOS FET/SiC-diode module for high performance power switching, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 679686, May 2005. [24] C. Ho, F. Canales, A. Coccia, and M. Laitinen, A circuit-level analytical study on switching behaviors of SiC diode at basic cell for power converters, in Proc. IEEE Ind. Appl. Soc. Annu. Meet., Oct. 2008, pp. 18. [25] Y.-C. Hsieh, T.-C. Hsueh, and H.-C. Yen, An interleaved boost converter with zero-voltage transition, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 973978, Apr. 2009. [26] L. Huber, B. T. Irving, and M. M. Jovanovic, Open-loop control methods for interleaved DCM/CCM boundary boost PFC converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 16491657, Jul. 2008. [27] M. Valentini, A. Raducu, D. Sera, and R. Teodorescu, PV inverter test setup for European efciency, static and dynamic MPPT efciency evaluation, in Proc. 11th Int. Conf. Optimization Elect. Electron. Equipment, 2008, pp. 433438. [28] R. Br undlinger, N. Henze, H. H aberlin, B. Burger, A. Bergmann, and F. Baumgartner, prEN 50530The new European standard for performance characterisation of PV inverters, in Proc. 24th Eur. Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conf., 2009, pp. 31053109. [29] R. Gonzalez, J. Lopez, P. Sanchis, and L. Marroyo, Transformerless inverter for single-phase photovoltaic systems, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 693697, Mar. 2007. [30] D. L. King, S. Gonzalez, G. Galbraith, and W. E. Boyson, Performance model for grid-connected photovoltaic inverters, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, Rep. SAND2007-5036, Sep. 2007.

HO et al.: COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AN INTERLEAVED BOOST CONVERTER

299

Carl Ngai-Man Ho (S06M07SM12) received the B.Eng. and M.Eng. double degrees and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, in 2002 and 2007, respectively. His Ph.D. research was focused on the development of dynamic voltage regulation and restoration technology. From 2002 to 2003, he was a Research Assistant at the City University of Hong Kong. From 2003 to 2005, he was an Engineer at e.Energy Technology Ltd., Hong Kong. In May 2007, he joined ABB Corporate Research, Ltd., Baden-D attwil, Switzerland, where he is currently a Principal Scientist and Project Manager of photovoltaic inverter research projects. He owns several patents in the area of energy saving and renewable energy conversion. His research interests include renewable energy conversion technologies, power quality, modeling and control of power converters, and characterization of wide bandgap power semiconductor devices and their applications.

Gerardo Escobar (M00SM08) received the B.Sc. degree in electromechanical engineering (specialty in electronics), the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering (specialty in automatic control) from the Engineering Faculty, National University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, in 1991 and 1995, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Signals and Systems Labo ratory, Ecole Sup erieure dElectricit e, Paris, France, in May 1999. He is currently a Principal Scientist in the Power Electronics Group, ABB Corporate Research Ltd., Baden-D attwil, Switzerland. His main research interests include nonlinear control design, passivity based control, control of switching power converters, active lters, inverters, electrical drives, and renewable energy systems.

Hannes Breuninger (M09) received the Dipl. degree in mechatronics engineering from the Karlsruher Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2011. His Diploma thesis was focused on control systems for automotive clutches to reduce judder. From 2009 to 2010, he was an Intern at ABB Corporate Research, Ltd., Baden-D attwil, Switzerland. His tasks implied design, implementation, and performance verication of dcdc converters for photovoltaic applications. Since 2011, he has been a Testing Engineer with an automobile supplier, Brose, Hallstadt, Germany, and is responsible for test coordination and validation processes in the Development Department. His studies were focused on power electronic systems and feedback control systems. He was involved in the design and implementation topics for multilevel converters in his student research project.

Francisco Canales (M95) received the B.S. degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from the Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico, in 1989, the M.Sc. degree in electronic engineering from the Centro Nacional de Investigaci on y Desarrollo Tecnol ogico (CENIDET), Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1994, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, in 2003. He was a Senior Research Assistant at the Center for Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Tech, where he was involved in core research and several industry-sponsored projects. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering, CENIDET. He is currently a Senior Principal Scientist at ABB Corporate Research Ltd., Baden-D attwil, Switzerland, where he is involved in research on high-density traction converters and industrial applications.

Sami Pettersson (M05) received the M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland, in 2004 and 2009, respectively, where his research topic was shunt four-wire active power lter topologies and their digital control methods. He was with the Institute of Power Electronics, Tampere University of Technology, as a Research Assistant from 2003 to 2004, and as a Research Engineer from 2004 to 2008. In December 2008, he joined the Power Electronics Systems Group, ABB Corporate Research Ltd., Baden-D attwil, Switzerland, where he is currently a Principal Scientist and Project Manager of a research project related to renewable energy conversion and industrial motor drive systems. His research interests include modeling, design, and optimization of power converter topologies and systems, power quality, as well as control of power converters.