Extreme Environment Compatible Ceramic Enhanced PEBB Devices (EE-PEBB)

A critical element in the NASA/NRC Technology Roadmap is to develop Power Electronic Building Block (PEBB) devices that can function in Extreme Environments. NASA?s stated aim is to use high power density/high efficiency PEBB devices to streamline design and introduce size, weight, cost and efficiency savings. The formidable challenge is to design such PEBB devices that use materials that can function in Extreme Environment conditions. The proposed high power density/high efficiency PEBB solution employs ceramics, striction materials and wide bandgap semiconductors as to meet these Extreme Environment operation challenges. This design eliminates transformer magnetics and opto-isolators (required for galvanic isolation) and eliminates external circuits and components as to provide lower complexity, enhanced performance, and much higher SWaP specifications than currently available. These ?smart? PEBBs incorporating new design and novel materials can now provide NASA design engineers with a whole new level of self-monitoring capabilities as to include voltage, current and temperature self-sensing at the device junction level. These will enable robust prognostics, power reconfiguration, and advanced control methods to be rapidly developed and tested.