US patent on electrically-cooled power modules
A US Patent (No. US 8.995.134 B2) entitled “Electrically-cooled Power Module” was assigned to Lear Corporation (Southfield, MI, USA) on March 31, 2015. This patent was developed by IMB-CNM researchers in collaboration with engineers from Lear Corporation (Valls, Spain) and Leitat (Terrassa, Spain) in the framework of the CENIT-VERDE project.
This invention is intended to provide an advanced thermal management solution both to improve the thermal management of semiconductor power devices and to eventually allow harvesting of wasted heat into electricity again. The developed prototypes implement a half-bridge power module topology based on 600 V – 50 A IGBTs and diodes, with thermo-electrical (Peltier) modules directly integrated in the DCB ceramic layer just below the power devices.