Renesas Electronics introduces industry-leading small inverter solutions for new energy vehicles

Renesas Electronics has announced the introduction of a new 100 kW class inverter solution that enables an industry-leading 3.9 liter (L) small design class for 100 kW class high-power motors used in medium to large hybrid vehicles (HEVs) and small to medium electric vehicles (EVs), including SUVs.

Renesas Electronics will offer the new solution in the form of a solution suite that includes software for improving the performance of HEV/EV motors, hardware components such as microcontrollers (MCUS), insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and fast recovery diodes (FRDS), and other power semiconductor devices.

The new solution enables system developers to reduce the time spent on various development steps: from specification analysis to hardware and software development and motor characteristic tuning. For example, the inverter prototype development time can be reduced from two to three years to one year, reducing the cycle by more than 50%, thus greatly reducing the development cycle and cost.

Carbon dioxide emissions are rising due to abnormal weather events and increased levels of environmental pollution caused by global warming. For the automotive industry, to reduce CO2 emissions, the need to adopt electric systems (such as HEVs and EVs) on a large scale as soon as possible will further increase.

In the electric system, the main role of the inverter is to convert direct current (DC) electricity to alternating current, and control the motor to adjust the speed and current according to changes in driving conditions. Therefore, in order to improve the fuel and power efficiency of the inverter system, in addition to the need to miniaturize the inverter, it is also necessary to have a high-precision and high-efficiency motor drive system in order to install electric devices in the limited space of the engine room of various models. Renesas Electronics' latest miniaturized inverter solutions meet these needs.

Renesas Electronics has always been committed to developing a suite of inverter solutions. In 2014, Renesas developed a solution that achieved a size of 2.9L at the rated 50 kW level. To meet the growing demand for large output motors for large vehicles, Renesas Electronics has expanded its product lineup with a new 100 kW inverter solution that includes a motor calibration tool to support these high-power motors.

Key features of the new 100 kW inverter solution:

(1) The industry leading 3.9-liter small design class reduces the weight of the inverter system and can be installed in a smaller space

It uses IGBT wafers with built-in temperature sensors to make modules. With its temperature management technology with the speed of response and precision of the built-in temperature sensor, the size and weight of the radiator in the inverter system can be greatly reduced.

In addition, the MCU of the main control also has an enhanced motor control unit (EMU), which is a dedicated circuit that directly controls the motor instead of the CPU. This allows processing of the external automotive control unit (known as the electronic control Unit (ECU)) using the CPU, including the DC/DC converter, second motor and cooling pump processing. This enables efficient integration of the automotive ECU, thereby improving the use of limited space in the engine compartment.

(2) Reduced the development cycle by more than 50% with software that allows rapid evaluation of the actual vehicle

In addition to hardware, the inverter solution also includes motor calibration tools to improve motor performance, so that the motor can operate efficiently. With this tool, system manufacturers can immediately evaluate inverter systems in real vehicles, reducing three to two years of inverter system prototype development to just one year, a reduction of more than 50%.

(3) Effectively improve fuel/power efficiency of HEV/EV through professionally optimized devices

New IGBT/FRD devices reduce on-off and switching losses, and new inverter solutions reduce current losses by approximately 12%

With Renesas Electronics' main components designed specifically for HEVs and EVs, the new solution reduces the power loss of the inverter by approximately 10%, thereby improving the motor efficiency, which ultimately helps to improve the fuel/power efficiency of the inverter system. The new solution is equipped with the RH850/C1H MCU family with an industry-proven rotary digital converter (RDC) function that converts the rotation Angle of the motor from analog to digital. The RH850/C1H enables high precision motor control up to 12 to 16 bits