Virtual Multi-Physics Package Design for All-GaN Active Neutral Point Clamped (ANPC)Traction Inverter

GaN is becoming a promising candidate due to its lower switching loss and fast switching speed compared to Si based device, such as IGBT. However, 650V GaN device can’t survive if three phase two level (2L) topology is used due to higher DC link voltage, for instance 800VDC, which brings active neutral point clamp (ANPC) topology to the stage. Compared with 2L topology, more switches and commutation loops are included in inverter operation so that they must be considered while packaging GaN for ANPC topology. Moreover, due to the unbalance loss/junction temperature (T<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">j</inf>) distribution among 6 switches per phase, a bottle neck exists if higher power density is required. This paper proposes a design approach considering multi-physics coupling effects to remove this obstacle. With the proposed design approach, a modular GaN card package is designed.