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 and wide bandgap semiconductor materials as to meet these Extreme Environment operation challenges. The design eliminates transformer magnetics and opto-isolators (required for galvanic isolation) and will eliminate external circuits and components providing lower complexity, enhanced performance, and much higher SWaP specifications than currently available. The new design and novel materials now provide a whole new level of self-monitoring capability that includes voltage, current and temperature at the device die level enabling both robust prognostics and power reconfiguration.