SHF: Small: Design Methodology for Efficient and Reliable Medium-Power Point-of-Load Converters via In-Field Built-in Self-Calibration

过去十年，对中等功率电子产品的需求呈指数级增长，以支持各种应用，包括：用于缓解电动汽车电池耗尽的汽车电源管理电路、无人驾驶汽车、卫星负载点转换器、基站电子产品(例如谷歌的Project Loon、Facebook的Aquila无人机)以及太阳能(PV)阵列的电源管理。工业上对这些电力电子产品(主要是负载点(POL)电源转换器)的需求日益增长，这就要求开发可靠的解决方案，在应用程序的整个生命周期内保持目标规格，包括能效。这些功率转换器部署在具有长期现场应用的系统中，其性能必须能够承受：极端温度，包括高热；老化效应，包括阈值电压和偏置漂移；输出负载的大幅波动(例如，电动汽车在加速时会吸收大电流)；以及空间应用的辐射效应。该项目的主要目标是创新POL硬件和设计方法，以确保这些中等功率转换器在其生命周期中保持最先进的性能，这是对现有POL硬件的重大改进。在课堂上向本科生和研究生介绍这些设计方法将为他们未来在电源管理设计方面的职业生涯做好准备。通过会议、研讨会和出版物传播这项研究的结果将在工业界和学术界之间建立更多的协同，并带来对功率转换器技术和内置自检和校准技术的新认识。该项目的目标将通过以下方面来实现：1)建议的系统设计方法和相关的用于自适应电源转换器的可重构控制器和驱动器硬件，以及2)内置自检和现场校准(BISTC)，以在输入范围内和随着时间的推移监控转换器参数，以确保可靠运行和预测故障。这样开发的技术将被集成到硬件中，因为只有当功率转换器硬件和BISTC联合设计时，才可能在可靠性和效率方面取得实质性进展。该项目将为中等功率应用提供高效、稳定、可靠的转换器。此外，拟议的内置监控机制将使设计行业能够轻松收集老化信息并填补这一知识空白，因为电源转换器的老化进程和模式在很大程度上是未知的。这些数据可用于进一步优化下一代系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The past decade has experienced exponential demand for medium-power electronics to support a variety of applications including: automotive power management circuits for battery drain mitigation in electric vehicles, unmanned vehicles, satellite point-of-load converters, base-station electronics (e.g. Google's Project Loon, Facebook's Aquila Drone), and power management within solar (PV) arrays. The growing industrial need for these power electronics, primarily point-of-load (POL) power converters, has brought about a requirement for developing reliable solutions that maintain target specifications, including energy efficiency, over the lifetime of the application. These power converters are deployed in systems that have long-term field applications, and their performance must be able to withstand: temperature extremes, including high heat; aging effects, including threshold voltage and bias shifts; large fluctuations in output load (e.g. electric vehicles that draw large currents when accelerating); as well as radiation effects for space applications. The main objective of this project is to innovate POL hardware and design methodologies that ensure these medium-power converters maintain state-of-the-art performance over their lifetime, a significant improvement over existing POL hardware. Introducing these design methodologies in classrooms to both undergraduate and graduate students will prepare them for future careers in power management design. Disseminating the results of this research via conferences, workshops, and publications will build more synergy between industry and academia, and bring new awareness of power converter technologies and built-in self-test and calibration techniques. This objective of this project will be achieved by focusing on: 1) the proposed system design methodology and the associated reconfigurable controller and driver hardware for adaptable power converters, and 2) built-in-self-test and in-field calibration (BISTC) to monitor the converter parameters over the input range, and over time to ensure reliable operation and predict failure. The techniques so developed are to be integrated within the hardware because substantial gains on reliability and efficiency are only possible when power converter hardware and BISTC are jointly designed. This project will enable efficient, stable, and hence reliable converters for medium-power applications. Furthermore, the proposed built-in monitoring mechanisms will allow the design industry to easily collect aging information and fill this knowledge gap, as aging progression and patterns for power converters are largely unknown. This data can be used to further optimize the next generation systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.