The present invention relates to a structure including a heat dissipation plate, and more particularly to a power semiconductor module mounting a power semiconductor device, and a power conversion device including the power semiconductor module.
Power conversion devices based on switching of a power semiconductor device are widely used for consumer use, automotive use, railway use, transformer facilities, and the like because of its high conversion efficiency. The power semiconductor device generates heat by energization, and thus high heat dissipation is required. Further, the power semiconductor device is sealed with a resin or a gel to secure insulating properties.
Structures to seal a power semiconductor device with a resin are disclosed in Patent Literatures 1 and 2.
PTL 1: JP 2004-303900 A
PTL 2: JP 2013-030649 A
A semiconductor device described in Patent Literature 1 forms a flat heat dissipation surface, and thus the surface area is small and heat exchange efficiency is poor.
A semiconductor module described in Patent Literature 2 forms a heat dissipation surface having a heat sink exposed on one side. Although heat dissipation to a gas is improved by the heat sink, heat dissipation efficiency is poor due to occurrence of a bypass flow in a case where the semiconductor module is used for cooling in a liquid having superior heat dissipation than gas.
The present invention is a structure including a heat dissipation plate thermally connected to a heating element, and a resin region having a resin material that fixes the heating element and the heat dissipation plate, wherein the heat dissipation plate includes a fin portion protruding from a heat dissipation surface of the heat dissipation plate, and including a plurality of fins formed to be exposed from the sealing resin material, and a wall portion formed to protrude from the heat dissipation surface to a same side as the fins and which partitions the fin portion and the resin region, a structure including a sealing portion in a part of the resin region, and a waterway structure having a flat wall surface and having the structure inserted therein.
According to the present invention, the structure having a heating element such as a power semiconductor device is inserted into the waterway structure having a flat wall surface, whereby a channel can be easily formed in a cooling waterway and a bypass flow can be suppressed, and thus a water flow can be efficiently guided and high dissipation can be realized.
Hereinafter, a power semiconductor module used for a power conversion device to be mounted on a vehicle will be described as a favorable embodiment of a structure according to the present invention. In an embodiment of the power semiconductor module described below, configuration elements such as a power semiconductor device as a heating element, an Al base plate as a heat dissipation plate thermally connected with the heating element and a fin portion, and a sealing resin as a resin material that fixes the heating element and the heat dissipation plate will be described with reference to the drawings. In the drawings, the same reference numeral is given to the same elements, and redundant description is omitted.
A sealing portion 901 is formed in the sealing resin 900 from which the aforementioned terminals protrude. As will be described below, the power semiconductor module 300 secures the liquid-tightness of a cooling refrigerant by a member such as an O-ring disposed in the sealing portion 901 when the power semiconductor module 300 is fixed to a channel forming body 1000.
Further, the power semiconductor module 300 has wall portions 800A and 800B that separates a fin portion 920 and the sealing resin 900. The sealing resin 900 has a resin region 900A formed at the same height as the wall portion 800A and a resin region 900B formed at the same height as the wall portion 800B. The wall portion 800A is formed to be smaller the wall portion 800B in height.
The power semiconductor module 300 of the present embodiment includes a ceramic board (a collector-side ceramic board 930 and an emitter-side ceramic board 931) consisting of an Al base plate 902, a ceramic insulator 942, and Al wiring 911. The collector-side ceramic board 930 will be described below. Although separately illustrated in
The Al base 902 of the present embodiment has a substantially rectangular principal plane. The wall portion 800A is formed on a lateral-side edge portion of the Al base 902. The wall portion 800B is formed on a longitudinal-side edge portion of the Al base 902. In other words, the fin portion 920 is sandwiched by the wall portions 800A in a lateral direction and is sandwiched by the wall portions 800B in a longitudinal direction. The wall portion 800B is formed along a flow direction of a refrigerant flowing between the fins of the fin portion 920.
The wall portion 800B is formed to be higher than the wall portion 800A in the height toward a protruding direction of the fin portion 920. Since the height of the wall portion 800A is different from the height of the wall portion 800B, tapered portions 800C are formed in portions (four portions) that connect the wall portions 800A and the wall portions 800B. With the configuration, an end surface of the tapered portion 800C of the wall portion 800A and the wall portion 800B forms a continuous surface rather than a stepped shape. In the present embodiment, the fin portion 920 is formed to be higher than the wall portion 800A in height in the protruding direction, and is nearly equal to the wall portion 800B in height.
A cooling medium flows in a channel 19 formed by the fin portion 920 and the flat waterway wall 1001. In the other regions, the bypass flow of the cooling medium is suppressed by the wall portion 800B and the resin region 900B. In addition, the wall portion 800A and the resin region 900A are formed to be lower than the wall portion 800B or the like to suppress channel resistance. With the above configuration, a power semiconductor module (power conversion device) having high heat dissipation with a low pressure loss can be obtained.
A procedure of manufacturing the power semiconductor module 300 of the present embodiment will be described with reference to
The Al wiring 911, the Al base 902, the fins 920, the wall portions 800A and 800B, and the tapered portion 800C are integrally formed by molten metal in which molten Al is poured into a mold, and then insulation between the patterns and shape adjustment of the fin portion are performed by etching or machining.
The lead frames 510 and 520 have tie bars 912 to prevent terminal portions from being buried with a sealing resin during transfer molding described below. The lead frame 510 is disposed on a side close to the IGBTs 155 and 157, and the lead frame 520 is disposed on a side close to the diodes 156 and 158. The lead frame 510 includes a terminal portion that is to serves as the AC-side terminal 320B and the signal terminals 325U and 325L below. The lead frame 520 includes a terminal portion that is to serve as the DC positive-side terminal 315B and a DC negative-side terminal 329B below.
The lead frame 510 is electrically connected to gate pads of the IGBTs 155 and 157 by the Al wire 530.
The wall portions 800 deform and absorb the variation in the manufacturing process, thereby to be in close contact with the molds around the fin portion 920. Therefore, an inflow of the resin into the fin portion can be prevented. By the above process, a power semiconductor module having high heat dissipation with a low pressure loss while suppressing a bypass flow can be manufactured.
Therefore, it can be understood that the inflow of the sealing resin into the fin portion can be prevented by setting the gap H between the wall portion 800 and the transfer molding mold to be 40 μm or less. The transfer molding process was carried out at a mold temperature of 175° C. and a molding pressure of 5 MPa.
The power semiconductor module of the present embodiment has a 2-in-1 structure in which two arm circuits of the upper arm circuit and the lower arm circuit are integrated into one module. In a case of using a 3-in-1 structure, a 4-in-1 structure, a 6-in-1 structure or the like, other than the 2-in-1 structure, the number of output terminals from the power semiconductor module can be reduced and downsized.
The inverter circuit unit 140 and the inverter circuit unit 142 are the same in a basic circuit configuration, and are basically the same in a control method and an operation. Since an outline of a circuit operation of the inverter circuit unit 140 and the like is known, a detailed description is omitted here.
As described above, the upper arm circuit includes the upper arm IGBT 155 and the upper arm diode 156 as a switching power semiconductor device, and the lower arm circuit includes the lower arm IGBT 157 and the lower arm diode 158. The IGBTs 155 and 157 perform a switching operation upon receipt of a drive signal output from one or the other of the two driver circuits that configure a driver circuit 174 to convert the DC power supplied from a battery 136 into three-phase AC power.
The upper arm IGBT 155 and the lower arm IGBT 157 include a collector electrode, an emitter electrode (signal emitter electrode terminal), and a gate electrode (gate electrode terminal). The upper arm diode 156 and the lower arm diode 158 have two electrodes of a cathode electrode and an anode electrode. The cathode electrodes of the diodes 156 and 158 are electrically connected to the collector electrodes of the IGBTs 155 and 157, respectively, and the anode electrodes of the diodes 156 and 158 are electrically connected to the emitter electrodes of the IGBTs 155 and 157, respectively so that the direction from the emitter electrodes to the collector electrodes of the upper arm IGBT 155 and the lower arm IGBT 157 becomes a forward direction. Note that, as a power semiconductor device, a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) may be used. In this case, the upper arm diode 156 and the lower arm diode 158 are unnecessary.
Temperature information of the upper and lower arm series circuits is input from temperature sensors (not illustrated) provided in the upper and lower arm series circuits to a microcomputer. Further, voltage information of the DC positive side of the upper and lower arm series circuits is input to the microcomputer. The microcomputer detects over-temperature and over-voltage on the basis of the information, and stops the switching operation of all of the upper arm IGBT 155 and the lower arm IGBT 157 when an over-temperature or an over-voltage is detected, to protect the upper and lower arm series circuits from the over-temperature or the over-voltage.
After the power semiconductor module 300 is inserted into the channel forming body, a laminated wiring board 501 on which components are mounted is assembled, and the signal terminals and the laminated wiring board 501 are electrically connected. Further, the terminals 320B, 315B, and 320B through which a large current flows are welded to terminals protruding from a plate 1200 on which bus bar wiring is laminated in multiple layers. The laminated wiring board 501 and the plate 1200 are stereoscopically laminated, thereby to downsize the power conversion device.
The channel forming body 1000 forms a refrigerant channel into which a refrigerant for cooling the power semiconductor module 300 flows. The channel forming body 1000 has the wall surface 1001. The wall surface 1001 forms a channel through which the refrigerant flows between a heat dissipation portion 910 of the power semiconductor module 300 and the wall surface 1001. The wall surface 1001 has a planar structure not to allow the refrigerant to flow between the sealing resin surface 900B of the power semiconductor module 300 and the wall surface 1001. The channel forming body 1000 is formed such that the distance between the wall surfaces 1001 facing each other and the distance between the sealing resin surface 900B on one side and the sealing resin surface 900B on the other side, of the power semiconductor module 300, become substantially equal. An elastic body such as an O ring is provided on the sealing portion 901 of the power semiconductor module 300.
The power semiconductor module 300 is inserted into the channel forming body 1000 such that the sealing resin surface 900B come in contact with the wall surface 1001 of the channel forming body 1000. With the configuration, the power semiconductor module 300 is disposed such that the tips of the fin portion 920 formed to be substantially flush with the sealing resin surface 900B come to contact with the wall surface 1001 of the channel forming body 1000. Therefore, the refrigerant flowing between the fin portion 920 and the wall surface 1001 is restrained from flowing between the sealing resin surface 900B and the wall surface 1001 and between the tips of the fins and the wall surface 1001 as a bypass flow. Since the heat dissipation portion 910 is configured from a high-temperature conductor 920 having high thermal conductivity, the heat of the power semiconductor device can be efficiently cooled. Therefore, the power semiconductor module 300 of the present embodiment is excellent in heat dissipation.
The channel through which the refrigerant flows is configured from a combination of the fin structure formed on the power semiconductor module 300 side and the wall surface 1001 on a plane formed on the channel forming body 1000 side. With the simplification of the structure, the power conversion device can be easily manufactured.
In addition, in the present embodiment, approximately the same plane means that planes are manufactured to become the same plane as much as possible. Steps that do not exceed 100 μm, such as a step caused by resin curing shrinkage or a difference in thermal expansion between members, and surface roughness, are less affected in suppressing the bypass flow and are therefore included in approximately the same plane.
The channel forming body 1000 is not particularly limited as long as the channel forming body has a watertight structure. However, the channel forming body 1000 can be manufactured using metal such as aluminum or aluminum die cast, a thermoplastic resin such as polyphenylene sulfide, polybutylene terephthalate, polyamide, polyimide, or polytetrafluoroethylene, or a thermosetting resin such as an epoxy resin.
Further, an embodiment is not limited to the present embodiment, and metal plating is applied to a surface of the power semiconductor module 300 of the above-described embodiment, the surface being lower than the sealing portion and being in contact with the cooling water. With the configuration, the sealing resin is prevented from being directly in contact with the cooling water, and a decrease in chip insulating properties due to absorption of water by the sealing resin can be suppressed.
By providing the stress support portion 1300 to overlap with the wall portion 800 in this way, the stress support portion 1300 supports mold clamping force at the time of transfer molding, thereby to reduce the stress applied to the semiconductor device to prevent device destruction.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2015/073926 | 8/26/2015 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2017/033295 | 3/2/2017 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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9277682 | Kaneko | Mar 2016 | B2 |
9466550 | Luan | Oct 2016 | B2 |
9659844 | Mukhopadhyay | May 2017 | B2 |
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20090231811 | Tokuyama et al. | Sep 2009 | A1 |
20130050947 | Kadoguchi et al. | Feb 2013 | A1 |
20150016064 | Yamamoto et al. | Jan 2015 | A1 |
20150214205 | Tokuyama et al. | Jul 2015 | A1 |
20180013355 | Tokuyama et al. | Jan 2018 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
10-112519 | Apr 1998 | JP |
2004-303900 | Oct 2004 | JP |
2006-202899 | Aug 2006 | JP |
2009-219270 | Sep 2009 | JP |
2012-164763 | Aug 2012 | JP |
2013-30649 | Feb 2013 | JP |
2013-62483 | Apr 2013 | JP |
2015-115510 | Jun 2015 | JP |
WO 2016140153 | Sep 2016 | WO |
Entry |
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International Search Report (PCT/ISA/210) issued in PCT Application No. PCT/JP2015/073926 dated Nov. 10, 2015 with English translation (Four (4) pages). |
Japanese-language Written Opinion (PCT/ISA/237) issued in PCT Application No. PCT/JP2015/073926 dated Nov. 10, 2015 (Four (4) pages). |
Extended European Search Report issued in counterpart European Application No. 15902264.9 dated Mar. 27, 2019 (seven (7) pages). |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20180254235 A1 | Sep 2018 | US |