Modern Power Electronic Devices: Physics, Applications, and Reliability

Power devices are key to modern power systems, performing essential functions such as inverting and changing voltages, buffering, and switching. The increasing complexity of power systems, with distributed renewable generation on the rise, is posing challenges to these devices. In recent years, several new devices have emerged, including wide bandgap devices, each with advantages and weaknesses depending on circumstances and applications.

With a device-centric approach, this book begins by introducing the present challenges in Power Electronics, emphasizing the relevance of this discipline in today's scenario, and pointing out the key parameters to pay attention to from the application-design perspective. The next nine chapters dig into details, covering junction diodes, thyristors, silicon MOSFETs, silicon IGBTs, IGCTs, SiC diodes, SiC MOSFETs, GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MIS-FETs), and GaN vertical transistors. A set of three chapters follow, covering key aspects from the designer's standpoint, namely module design and reliability, switching cell design, and IGBT gate-driving methods for robustness and reliability. A chapter outlining the prospects and outlooks in power electronics technology and its market concludes the book.

This book addresses power device technology at the design level, by bridging the gap between semiconductor- and materials science, and power electronic applications. It provides key information for researchers working with power electronic devices and for power electronic application designers, and it is also a useful resource for academics and industrial researches working on power electronics at the system level, such as industrial machine designers and robot designers.

Francesco Iannuzzo received the M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from the University of Naples, Italy, in 1997 and 2002, respectively. He is primarily specialized in power device modeling.

He is currently a professor of Reliable Power Electronics at the Aalborg University, Denmark, where he is also part of CORPE, the Center of Reliable Power Electronics. His research interests are in the field of reliability of power devices, including mission-profile based life estimation, condition monitoring, failure modeling, and testing up to MW-scale modules under extreme conditions. He is the author or co-author of more than 220 publications on journals and international conferences, three book chapters, and four patents. Besides publication activity, over the past years, he has been contributing 17 technical seminars about reliability at first conferences as ISPSD, EPE, ECCE, PCIM, and APEC.

Prof. Iannuzzo is a senior member of the IEEE (Industry Application Society, Reliability Society, Power Electronics Society, and Industrial Electronics Society). He currently serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, Transactions on Industry Applications, the EPE Journal, and Elsevier Microelectronics Reliability. He is the vice-chair of the IEEE IAS Power Electronic Devices and Components Committee. In 2018 he was the general chair of the 29th ESREF, the first European conference on the reliability of electronics, and has recently been appointed general chair for the EPE 2023 conference in Aalborg.