Low-inductance half-bridge arrangement

A half-bridge arrangement for a converter, comprising

• two switching elements connected in series at a node,
• an intermediate circuit capacitor device,
• a circuit board on which the switching elements and the capacitor device are arranged and interconnected to form a half bridge, the circuit board having two major surfaces and at least four trace layers which interconnect the switching elements and the intermediate circuit capacitor device such that, during a commutation event of the half-bridge, at least two magnetic dipoles having opposite spatial directions are produced by current flow in and between the at least four trace layers, and
• driver devices connected to control terminals of the switching devices in one-to-one correspondence such that a driver current direction of a main current of a driver device is orthogonal to a commutation current direction of the main current for that driver device during the commutation event.

A converter comprising:

• a half-bridge arrangement with
• two switching elements connected in series at a node,
• an intermediate circuit capacitor device comprising two capacitors,
• a circuit board on which the switching elements and the capacitor device are arranged and interconnected to form a half bridge, the circuit board having two major surfaces and at least four trace layers which interconnect the switching elements and the intermediate circuit capacitor device such that, during a commutation event of the half-bridge, at least two magnetic dipoles having opposite spatial directions are produced by current flow in and between the at least four trace layers, and
• wherein the two capacitors are disposed in a point-symmetric fashion on different major surfaces of the circuit board.