There are three Best Paper awards together with a Young Engineer award and a Young Researcher award. The PCIM Europe Advisory Board, chaired by Professor Dr Leo Lorenz, ECPE, selected the five winners from over 400 submissions. The main criteria were the timeliness, relevance and quality of each entry.

The Best Paper Award honour the top three submissions received for the entire conference. Engineers aged 30 or below are eligible for the Young Engineer Award and the most recent category, the Young Researcher Award recognises an author under 30 years of age from science and research institutions.

The winners of the three Best Paper Awards are:

Ralf Schmidt, Siemens, Germany, for the paper Impact of Current Density on Wire Bond Lifetime – Power Cycle Testing with Clamped VCE for Realistic Current Stress. Abstract: In power cycling tests, end-of-life failure modes of IGBT modules are provoked by repetitive DC current pulses. However, in real-life inverter operation a big portion of the power losses is due to switching events and much smaller currents are present in the module. Especially the wire bond lifetime depends on the current density and exaggerated test load currents can lead to early wire bond lift-off. This article presents experimental results on the impact of current density on wire bond lifetime and introduces a novel PC test method that allows for testing with moderate currents.

Martin Guillet, SuperGrid Institute, France, also won for Design and Testing of a Compact Dry Insulated Medium Frequency Transformer Prototype for Medium Voltage Applications. Abstract: Medium voltage solid state transformers with a modular structure require compact insulated medium frequency transformers with high efficiency to be an attractive solution. In this paper, the design, prototyping and test of a cast resin 12 kV class insulated medium frequency transformer with more than 99.5% efficiency and more than 5kW/L power density is described. Dielectric performances are demonstrated experimentally. An accurate measurement method for the losses as well as a full load test method are also presented.

And Hamzeh Beiranvand, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Germany for Advanced Solid-State-based Protection Scheme for High-Voltage Li-ion Battery Energy Storage System. Abstract: Safety issues such as external short-circuit (ESCs) increase discharge rate and hence impose impacts on Li-ion batteries by raising the temperature. To minimise these effects, high-speed protection schemes are required to eliminate ESCs.

 Leonhard Hertenstein, Mercedes Benz, Germany received the Young Engineer Award for his paper Machine-Learning Approach to Model Junction Temperatures in Automotive Inverters. Abstract: Increasing power density of automotive inverters lead to an increasing demand for accurate lifetime and reliability models. As such models are closely dependent on junction temperatures, they benefit from accurate temperature estimation methods. In this contribution, a machine-learning approach to model semiconductor junction temperatures is presented. The model was trained and evaluated with data from a test bench incorporating a 1200 V SiC power module. The data pipeline, model performance, benefits and limitations are shown and discussed.

Minh Nhut Ngo, CEA, France, was awarded the Young Researcher Award for Implementation and Characterisation of a 200 kW Full-SiC Isolated DC-DC Converter for Future Medium Voltage PV Plants. Abstract: Nowadays, taking into account the new projects of photovoltaic (PV) power plants, novel architectures with an intermediate medium-voltage DC (MVDC) collector are under consideration. Thus, high-power isolated DC-DC converters are key components to accelerate the deployment of these architectures. The author presents the implementation and characterization of  a prototype which is a 200-kW two-stage isolated DC-DC converter based on Medium Voltage SiC Power Modules

The papers will be presented by the winners at the conference from 09 May to 11 May 2023.

The awards will be presented by Prof Dr Leo Lorenz and this year's conference sponsors Semikron Danfoss, Littelfuse, Infineon, VW and Mitsubishi Electric.