Physical Design Considerations for Three-Level Neutral-Point Clamped DC-DC Converters Using Discrete SiC MOSFETs

This article examines electrical, thermal, and packaging considerations for realizing DC-DC converters based on neutral-point clamped (NPC) phase legs. Four variations of a three-level NPC leg are contrasted. These variants cover different device packaging technologies, viz., surface mount, and through-hole devices. The scope of variants is limited to systems with liquid cooling and converters with a cuboid shape of a limited z-axis dimension. …