The goal of this workshop is to present the actual status of electronic devices and circuits around the power switches which are necessary to realize the complete power stage.

Besides the power switches itself, the gate driver is the component, which has the strongest impact on the performance and the reliability of the power stage and requires power semiconductor and electronic circuit know how. So a lesson about the switching behaviour of IGBTs and diodes lays the basis to understand the demands on the gate drive. It is followed by presentations over different approaches and necessary components and functionality of IGBT and MOSFET gate drivers and the
philosophy behind them. Driver cores allow the adaption to application specific demands while plug-and-play drives promise a short development time. Also some commercial available ready for use solutions will be presented and discussed.
For low to medium power and voltage, intelligent power modules with integrated drivers offer an interesting solution for fast and low-risk developments, but shift knowhow and added value from the inverter to the module manufacturer.

For current sensing, open- and close-loop magnetic as well as shunt sensors are available, including ICs for AD conversion and potential isolation. Potential-free and quasi potential free voltage sensors are discussed as well as measurement systems for laboratory use.

An outlook on hardware for inverter control, especially full FPGA integrated solutions, completes this seminar.

The workshop is chaired by Prof. H.-G. Eckel (University Rostock) and Dr. S. Zeltner (Fraunhofer IISB Erlangen) and J. Koszescha (ECPE).

All presentations and discussions will be in English.