STTR Phase II: Integrated Gallium Nitride (GaN) Field Effect Transistor (FET)-Based High Density On Board Electric Vehichle (EV) Charger

这个小型企业技术转让第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过使用氮化镓（GaN）来提高电力电子系统的能效。电力电子设备在当今社会中无处不在-用于电动汽车，笔记本电脑和数据中心。一个大功率GaN半桥（HPGHB）集成电路，电力电子系统的通用构建块，将被开发和制造。该项目旨在演示HPGHB在车载充电器（OBC）应用中的使用。使用HPGHB可能会导致更小和更有效的OBCs。在教育方面，该项目将帮助培训大学的研究生将GaN用于电力电子，这是一个高需求的就业领域。公司将能够招聘并受益于这种研究生培训。该小型企业技术转让（STTR）第二阶段项目旨在开发一种强大的大电流高功率GaN半桥（HPGHB）和车载充电器（OBC）的参考设计。由于需要短路保护和热管理，大电流集成GaN半桥具有挑战性。HPGHB计划用于长期可靠性很重要的领域，例如汽车/电动汽车（EV）应用。该STTR项目旨在完成HPGHB的设计，以提高其在包括电动汽车在内的苛刻应用中的可靠性。开发高效率、高功率密度的OBC可以加速电动汽车的普及。该项目的主要挑战是：a）提供防止短路的保护，防止短路导致灾难性损坏; B）展示高效率，以减少冷却要求并减小尺寸和重量; c）设计新颖的转换器控制技术，以实现相对低成本的硅基GaN技术的使用; d）通过动态高温工作寿命（HTOL）测试为汽车/电动汽车市场建立良好的长期可靠性;和e）降低系统总成本。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II project is to improve energy efficiency of power electronics systems through the use of Gallium Nitride (GaN). Power electronics are ubiquitous in today’s society – used inside the electric vehicles, laptops, and data centers. A high-power GaN half-bridge (HPGHB) integrated circuit, a generic building block of the power-electronic systems, will be developed and manufactured. This project seels to demonstrate use of HPGHB in an on-board charger (OBC) applications. The use of HPGHB may lead to smaller and more efficient OBCs. On the educational front, this project will help train graduate students at the University to use GaN for power electronics which is a high demand employment area. Companies will be able to recruit and benefit from this training of graduate students. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project seeks to develop a robust, high current high-power GaN half-bridge (HPGHB) and a reference design for an on-board charger (OBC). High-current integrated GaN half bridge is challenging due to the need for short-circuit protection and thermal management. HPGHB is planned for areas where long-term reliability is important, such as in automotive/electric vehicle (EV) applications. This STTR project seeks to complete the design of HPGHB increasing its reliability in demanding applications including EVs. Development of an OBC with high efficiency and high-power density may accelerate the adoption of EV. Key challenges for this project are: a) providing protection against short circuiting that causes catastrophic damage; b) demonstrating high efficiency to reduce cooling requirements and reduce size and weight; c) designing novel converter control techniques to enable usage of relatively low cost GaN-on-silicon technology; d) establishing good long-term reliability for the automotive/EV market via dynamic high-temperature-operating-life (HTOL) testing; and e) reducing overall system costs.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.