Comparison of the influence of Si and SiC semiconductor devices on power loss and weight of multiobjective optimal designed power converters

Abstract

This paper compares the power loss and weight of multiobjective optimal (MO) designed isolated DC-DC power converters based on Si and SiC technologies. To that end, a computer-aided design (CAD) tool previously published by the authors and dedicated to the MO design of isolated DC-DC power converters with genetic algorithms is used. The design problem requires the minimization of the power loss and the weight of the converter while ensuring the satisfaction of several constraints. The results show clearly that the wide band gap (WBG) semiconductor devices, typically the SiC technology for the power and voltage levels considered in this paper, lead to lighter converter with less power loss than classical Si devices. The use of our tool allows to precisely quantify that gain within a multiobjective optimization framework.