Power Semiconductors
Power semiconductors, integrated circuits, or IC’s are all the same thing. IC’s are semiconductors on steroids! They have similar components to semiconductors, and carry a larger amount of currents. Power semiconductors use a power diode, MOSFET, BJT, and IGBT. MOSFET stands for metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor. This is how the semiconductor receives its power. BJT stands for bipolar junction transistor. It can lowers saturation voltages over low operating temperature ranges. IGBT stands for Insulated-gate Bipolar Transistor. IGBT combines both BJT and MOSFET.
In order to cool power units, they depend upon a medium to transfer heat during the cooling process. Air-cooling is most common. The advantages of air cooling are availability, ability to insulate, and have a non-corrosive nature. Forced air cooling is another method. This uses a motor and pump system to increase the velocity of air. It has better cooling affects that regular air cooling.
Liquid cooling is a way to cool power semiconductors via water, or by a water glycol mix. The advantage of this type of cooling is increasing the thermal efficiency of cooling by 15-20%. Liquid cooling systems have a minimum amount of maintenance, and produce little to zero noise. Spray cooling allows for fluid to spray on the chip directly. This creates a vaporizing affect that quickly cools the chip.
