SBIR Phase I: Compact Power-Stack and Packaged Power Module

Marel Power Solutions, Inc., Plymouth MI

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of modular power sub-systems (power-stacks) that will enable a new generation of power inverters that are compact, re-usable, upgradable, resilient against die-supply shortages, and can be manufactured faster and cheaper. As the world migrates to sources of clean energy and the further electrification of industry, transportation, and homes, there is a significant and growing demand for electric power converters. Widespread adoption of clean energy requires that these converters be simple, scalable, reliable, and cost-effective. Today's designs are inconvenient both for end customers and for converter suppliers, as they typically are: complex, large, heavy, inflexible, expensive, and slow to market. Current inverter are often made by only a few specialized companies and have high technical barriers to entry for inexperienced entrants. Additionally, current inverters are locked to power-die suppliers, making scale-up and re-use challenging. The proposed project will develop and test a novel approach to enable inverters to meet new market demands. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop a novel approach to power conversion problems. High speed operation of high-power semiconductor switches typically generates significant heat. The novelty of the proposed innovation over current technologies resides in moving the point of electrical isolation from adjacent to the power-die to adjacent to the coolant, and massively integrating the power path, the control path and thermal path into scalable building blocks. An additional advantage is the ability to develop new manufacturing processes to build and integrate these blocks reliably. The outcomes of this project may be a design and manufacturing approach that results in 50% reduced development time and development cost, 80% lower weight and size, a $100-$200 per unit cost reduction, increased scalability, and improved resilience to die-supply shortages. 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.