Power converter and power module thereof
By designing a power module of shared drive circuit in the power converter, the problem of high costs caused by independent driving circuits in the existing IGBT parallel solution is solved, and the effect of reducing the cost of power modules and power converters is achieved. .
Patent Information
- Application Number
- CN202411493286.1
- Authority / Receiving Office
- CN · China
- Patent Type
- Applications(China)
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Filing Date
- 2024-10-23
- Publication Date
- 2025-01-10
AI Technical Summary
In the existing IGBT parallel solution, each IGBT module requires an independent driving circuit, resulting in high costs for power modules and power converters.
A power module is designed, including M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits. Each upper and lower bridge arm circuits contains multiple parallel IGBT components and shares The driving circuit forwards the PWM driving signal through the upper and lower bridge arm interlock circuit, and stops the signal forwarding when the two signals are high at the same time.
By sharing the drive circuit, the number of drive circuits per IGBT component is reduced, and the cost of power modules and power converters is significantly reduced.
Smart Images
Figure CN119298628A_ABST
Abstract
Description
Technical Field
[0001] The present application relates to the field of power electronics technology, and more specifically, to a power converter and a power module thereof. Background Art
[0002] Power electronics technology is one of the core technologies for power transmission, electric traction and other application scenarios. With the increase in the amount of electric power to be transmitted and the demand for high-power electric traction systems, the demand for high-power converters based on IGBT components is increasing day by day. Since the parallel connection of IGBT components has the advantages of higher current density, more uniform heat distribution, more flexible layout and higher cost performance, the application scope of IGBT parallel connection solutions is becoming increasingly wide.
[0003] The two commonly used IGBT parallel schemes are parallel connection between modules and parallel connection between bridge arms. The parallel connection between modules combines small-power IGBT modules or high-power IGBT modules in parallel to obtain equivalent modules with different rated currents, and the connection methods for parallel connection are also flexible and diverse. Taking the H-bridge topology power unit widely used in high-voltage inverters as an example, different module parallel connection structures can be adopted, such as the half-bridge "FF" scheme, the single "FZ" scheme, the four-unit "F4" scheme, and the six-unit "FS" scheme. However, in the current module parallel scheme, a drive circuit is required for each IGBT module. Given that the drive circuit itself also requires a relatively high cost, the cost of the power module and the corresponding power converter based on the module parallel scheme is relatively high. Summary of the invention
[0004] In view of this, the present application provides a power converter and a power module thereof, which are used to reduce the cost of the power converter and the corresponding power module.
[0005] In order to achieve the above objectives, the proposed solution is as follows:
[0006] A power module is applied to a power converter, the power module comprising at least M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits corresponding to each of the upper bridge arm circuits, and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is a positive integer greater than 1, wherein:
[0007] Each of the upper bridge arm circuits includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of upper bridge arm drive circuits connected to each of the IGBT elements;
[0008] Each of the lower bridge arm circuits also includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of lower bridge arm drive circuits connected to each of the IGBT elements;
[0009] The upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits are respectively connected to the corresponding upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit, and are used to forward the two PWM drive signals issued by the upper control system to the upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit respectively, and stop signal forwarding when the two PWM drive signals are high at the same time.
[0010] Optionally, the upper bridge arm driving circuit includes a first-stage push-pull amplifying and filtering circuit, and the lower bridge arm driving circuit also includes a first-stage push-pull amplifying and filtering circuit.
[0011] Optionally, a drive isolation power supply is also included, wherein:
[0012] The driving isolation power supply outputs two positive and negative voltages, one of the positive and negative voltages is used to power the upper bridge arm driving circuit, and the other of the positive and negative voltages is used to power the lower bridge arm driving circuit.
[0013] Optionally, a high-voltage bus sampling circuit is also included, wherein:
[0014] The high-voltage bus sampling circuit is used to collect the voltage of the DC bus of the power module and feed back the obtained bus voltage value to the upper control system.
[0015] Optionally, the high-voltage bus sampling circuit includes a voltage divider circuit, an isolation optocoupler, a differential amplifier, a filter circuit and an AD conversion circuit, wherein:
[0016] The voltage divider circuit includes a plurality of high-precision resistors connected in series, which are used to collect the voltage of the high-voltage bus to obtain a voltage signal;
[0017] The isolation optical coupler is used to isolate the voltage signal and transmit it to the differential amplifier;
[0018] The differential amplifier is used to differentially amplify the voltage signal;
[0019] The filtering circuit is used to filter the voltage signal after the differential amplification;
[0020] The AD conversion circuit is used to perform AD conversion on the filtered voltage signal to obtain the bus voltage value.
[0021] Optionally, a fault feedback circuit is also included, wherein:
[0022] The fault feedback circuit is used to collect the fault signal of the upper bridge arm driving circuit and / or the lower bridge arm driving circuit and feed it back to the upper control system.
[0023] Optionally, an upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is also included, wherein:
[0024] The upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to perform short-circuit detection on the IGBT element in the upper bridge arm circuit and output the obtained short-circuit signal to the upper bridge drive circuit, and the short-circuit signal is used to control the upper bridge drive circuit to stop outputting the PWM drive signal.
[0025] Optionally, a lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is also included, wherein:
[0026] The lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to perform short-circuit detection on the IGBT element in the lower bridge arm circuit and output the obtained short-circuit signal to the lower bridge drive circuit, and the short-circuit signal is used to control the lower bridge drive circuit to stop outputting the PWM drive signal.
[0027] Optionally, a temperature acquisition circuit is also included, wherein:
[0028] The temperature acquisition circuit is used to detect the temperature of each IGBT element, obtain a maximum temperature value, and send the maximum temperature value to the upper control system.
[0029] An electric power converter is provided with the power module as described above.
[0030] It can be seen from the above technical scheme that the present application discloses a power converter and a power module thereof, the power module at least comprising M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits corresponding to each upper bridge arm circuit, and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is a positive integer greater than 1. Each upper bridge arm circuit comprises a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and comprises a plurality of upper bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; each lower bridge arm circuit also comprises a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and comprises a plurality of lower bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; the upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits are respectively connected to the corresponding upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit, and are used to forward the two PWM drive signals issued by the upper control system to the upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit respectively, and stop signal forwarding when the two PWM drive signals are high at the same time. In this scheme, instead of configuring an independent drive circuit for each IGBT element, one drive circuit can correspond to multiple IGBT elements in parallel, thereby reducing the cost of the power module and the power converter. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0031] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present application or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present application. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without paying any creative work.
[0032] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of a power module according to an embodiment of the present application;
[0033] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of a high-voltage bus sampling circuit according to an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0034] The following will be combined with the drawings in the embodiments of the present application to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present application, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments in the present application, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without creative work are within the scope of protection of this application.
[0035] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of a power module according to an embodiment of the present application.
[0036] The power module provided in this embodiment is applied to an electric power converter, which may include multiple power modules in this application. The power module may be a rectifier module or an inverter module. The corresponding electric power converter may be a rectifier or an inverter, or a booster or buck with both rectification and inversion.
[0037] like Figure 1 As shown, the power module of this embodiment includes at least M upper bridge arm circuits 10, M lower bridge arm circuits 20 and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is an integer greater than 1, and can be 2 or 3. One end of the upper bridge arm circuit is connected to one end of the lower bridge arm circuit, and is also connected to the DC bus of the power module, that is, one upper bridge arm circuit corresponds to one lower bridge arm circuit.
[0038] Each upper bridge arm circuit includes multiple parallel IGBT elements, and also includes an upper bridge arm drive circuit (not shown) connected to each IGBT element. Each lower bridge arm circuit also includes multiple parallel IGBT elements. The number of IGBTs in parallel in the upper and lower bridge arms can be the same or different. Each lower bridge arm circuit also includes a lower bridge arm drive circuit connected to each IGBT element.
[0039] In addition, the upper bridge arm driving circuit and the lower bridge arm driving circuit in the present application both include a first-stage push-pull filter circuit, that is, the upper bridge arm driving circuit amplifies and filters the PWM signal through its first-stage push-pull filter circuit, and outputs it to the gates of multiple IGBT elements in the upper bridge arm circuit, which is used to provide driving capability for the gates of the IGBT elements to achieve better opening or closing; the lower bridge arm driving circuit amplifies and filters the PWM signal through its first-stage push-pull filter circuit, and outputs it to the gates of multiple IGBT elements in the lower bridge arm circuit, which is used to provide driving capability for the gates of the corresponding IGBT elements to achieve better opening or closing.
[0040] It can be seen from the above technical scheme that the present application provides a power module, which is applied to a power converter and includes at least M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits corresponding to each upper bridge arm circuit, and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is a positive integer greater than 1. Each upper bridge arm circuit includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of upper bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; each lower bridge arm circuit also includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of lower bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; the upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits are respectively connected to the corresponding upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit, and are used to forward the two PWM drive signals issued by the upper control system to the upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit respectively, and stop signal forwarding when the two PWM drive signals are high at the same time. In this scheme, instead of configuring an independent drive circuit for each IGBT element, a drive circuit can correspond to multiple IGBT elements in parallel, thereby reducing the cost of the power module, and of course, the cost of the power converter configured with such a power module can also be reduced.
[0041] In addition, in a specific embodiment of the present application, it also includes a driving isolated power supply (not shown), which has at least two outputs, each of which is used to output a set of positive and negative voltages, that is, including positive voltages and negative voltages. The positive voltage is used to be output to the upper bridge arm to power the upper bridge arm driving circuit; the negative voltage is used to be output to the lower bridge arm to power the lower bridge arm driving circuit.
[0042] In addition, in a specific embodiment of the present application, a high-voltage bus sampling circuit is also included. The high-voltage bus sampling circuit is used to collect the voltage of the DC bus of the power module in the present application, and feed back the obtained bus voltage value to the upper control system. The high-voltage bus sampling circuit 100 in this embodiment includes a voltage divider circuit 101, an isolation optical coupler 102, a differential amplifier 103, a filter circuit 104 and an AD conversion circuit 105. Figure 2 shown.
[0043] The voltage divider circuit includes multiple high-precision resistors connected in series. One end of the series circuit is connected to the high-voltage bus and the other end is grounded. It is used to collect the voltage of the high-voltage bus to obtain a voltage signal, and output the voltage signal from one end of one of the resistors to the input end of the isolation optocoupler.
[0044] The isolation optocoupler is used to isolate the voltage signal so that it can be transmitted to the subsequent differential amplifier to prevent the voltage signal from causing damage to the differential amplifier; the voltage signal is amplified by the differential amplifier and then sent to the filter circuit for filtering. The filter circuit can also be a first-stage push-pull amplifier filter circuit, which not only filters it, but also push-pull amplifies it to meet the voltage requirements for AD conversion. The filtered voltage signal is sent to the AD conversion circuit for AD conversion to obtain the bus voltage value.
[0045] In a specific embodiment of the present application, a fault feedback circuit is also included, which is connected to the upper bridge drive circuit and the lower bridge drive circuit respectively, and is used to collect fault signals of the upper and lower bridge drive circuits and feed the collected signals back to the upper control system.
[0046] In a specific embodiment of the present application, an upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit and a lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit are also included. The upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to detect short circuits of IGBT elements in the upper bridge arm circuit. When a short circuit occurs in an IGBT element, the protection circuit will output the detected short-circuit signal to the upper bridge drive circuit, and the upper bridge drive circuit will stop outputting the PWM drive signal based on the short-circuit signal to avoid accidents in the system caused by a short circuit of an IGBT element; the lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to detect short circuits of IGBT elements in the lower bridge arm circuit. When a short circuit occurs in an IGBT element, the protection circuit will output the detected short-circuit signal to the lower bridge drive circuit, and the lower bridge drive circuit will stop outputting the PWM drive signal based on the short-circuit signal to avoid accidents in the system caused by a short circuit of an IGBT element in the lower bridge circuit.
[0047] In a specific embodiment of the present application, a temperature acquisition circuit is also included, which is used to detect the temperature of each IGBT element and output the highest value of all the obtained temperature values, that is, the highest temperature value, to the upper control system, so that the upper control system can perform protection control on the system according to the highest temperature value.
[0048] The present application also provides an embodiment of a power converter.
[0049] The power converter in this embodiment is a booster, transformer, rectifier, inverter and rectifier-inverter based on power electronic components and power electronic circuits. The power converter is provided with one or more power modules provided in the above embodiments. The power module includes at least M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits corresponding to each upper bridge arm circuit, and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is a positive integer greater than 1. Each upper bridge arm circuit includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of upper bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; each lower bridge arm circuit also includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of lower bridge arm drive circuits connected to each IGBT element; the upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits are respectively connected to the corresponding upper bridge arm drive circuit and lower bridge arm drive circuit, and are used to forward the two PWM drive signals issued by the upper control system to the upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit respectively, and stop signal forwarding when the two PWM drive signals are high at the same time. In this solution, instead of configuring an independent driving circuit for each IGBT element, one driving circuit can correspond to multiple IGBT elements connected in parallel, thereby reducing the cost of the power module. Of course, the cost of the power converter configured with this power module can also be reduced.
[0050] The various embodiments in this specification are described in a progressive manner, and each embodiment focuses on the differences from other embodiments. The same or similar parts between the various embodiments can be referenced to each other.
[0051] Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described, those skilled in the art may make additional changes and modifications to these embodiments once they have learned the basic creative concept. Therefore, the appended claims are intended to be interpreted as including the preferred embodiments and all changes and modifications that fall within the scope of the embodiments of the present invention.
[0052] Finally, it should be noted that, in this article, relational terms such as first and second, etc. are only used to distinguish one entity or operation from another entity or operation, and do not necessarily require or imply any such actual relationship or order between these entities or operations. Moreover, the terms "include", "comprise" or any other variants thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion, so that a process, method, article or terminal device including a series of elements includes not only those elements, but also other elements not explicitly listed, or also includes elements inherent to such process, method, article or terminal device. In the absence of further restrictions, the elements defined by the sentence "comprise a ..." do not exclude the existence of other identical elements in the process, method, article or terminal device including the elements.
[0053] The technical solution provided by the present invention is introduced in detail above. Specific examples are used in this article to illustrate the principle and implementation mode of the present invention. The description of the above embodiments is only used to help understand the method of the present invention and its core idea. At the same time, for those skilled in the art, according to the idea of the present invention, there will be changes in the specific implementation mode and application scope. In summary, the content of this specification should not be understood as limiting the present invention.
Claims
1. A power module, applied to a power converter, characterized in that: The power module at least includes M upper bridge arm circuits, M lower bridge arm circuits corresponding to each of the upper bridge arm circuits, and M upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits, where M is a positive integer greater than 1, wherein: Each of the upper bridge arm circuits includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of upper bridge arm drive circuits connected to each of the IGBT elements; Each of the lower bridge arm circuits also includes a plurality of IGBT elements connected in parallel, and includes a plurality of lower bridge arm drive circuits connected to each of the IGBT elements; The upper and lower bridge arm interlocking circuits are respectively connected to the corresponding upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit, and are used to forward the two PWM drive signals issued by the upper control system to the upper bridge arm drive circuit and the lower bridge arm drive circuit respectively, and stop signal forwarding when the two PWM drive signals are high at the same time.
2. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The upper bridge arm driving circuit includes a first-stage push-pull amplifying and filtering circuit, and the lower bridge arm driving circuit also includes a first-stage push-pull amplifying and filtering circuit.
3. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also included is a drive isolation power supply, where: The driving isolation power supply outputs two positive and negative voltages, one of the positive and negative voltages is used to power the upper bridge arm driving circuit, and the other of the positive and negative voltages is used to power the lower bridge arm driving circuit.
4. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: It also includes a high-voltage bus sampling circuit, wherein: The high-voltage bus sampling circuit is used to collect the voltage of the DC bus of the power module and feed back the obtained bus voltage value to the upper control system.
5. The power module according to claim 4, characterized in that: The high-voltage bus sampling circuit includes a voltage divider circuit, an isolation optocoupler, a differential amplifier, a filter circuit and an AD conversion circuit, wherein: The voltage divider circuit includes a plurality of high-precision resistors connected in series, which are used to collect the voltage of the high-voltage bus to obtain a voltage signal; The isolation optical coupler is used to isolate the voltage signal and transmit it to the differential amplifier; The differential amplifier is used to differentially amplify the voltage signal; The filtering circuit is used to filter the voltage signal after the differential amplification; The AD conversion circuit is used to perform AD conversion on the filtered voltage signal to obtain the bus voltage value.
6. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: Also included is a fault feedback circuit, wherein: The fault feedback circuit is used to collect the fault signal of the upper bridge arm driving circuit and / or the lower bridge arm driving circuit and feed it back to the upper control system.
7. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: It also includes an upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit, wherein: The upper bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to perform short-circuit detection on the IGBT element in the upper bridge arm circuit and output the obtained short-circuit signal to the upper bridge drive circuit, and the short-circuit signal is used to control the upper bridge drive circuit to stop outputting the PWM drive signal.
8. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: It also includes a lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit, wherein: The lower bridge arm short-circuit protection circuit is used to perform short-circuit detection on the IGBT element in the lower bridge arm circuit and output the obtained short-circuit signal to the lower bridge drive circuit, and the short-circuit signal is used to control the lower bridge drive circuit to stop outputting the PWM drive signal.
9. The power module according to claim 1, characterized in that: It also includes a temperature acquisition circuit, wherein: The temperature acquisition circuit is used to detect the temperature of each IGBT element, obtain a maximum temperature value, and send the maximum temperature value to the upper control system.
10. A power converter, characterized in that: A power module as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 9 is provided.