Partial Discharge of Inductives in a High Frequency Application

Abstract:
This paper presents an investigation on partial discharge in a transformer of a micro inverter. Due to the higher switching frequencies driven by wide bandgap (SiC and GaN) devices and also the demand for rising package densities, parasitics within the wire of certain components become more and more dominant. Also transients with a higher du/dt and/or di/dt lead to more voltage stress on the isolation. Thermal influences are not considered. Wire material datasheets do not provide essential information for those applications. The paper describes first measurement results on evaluating partial discharge whereas final design rules shall be derived from the full paper.