Switching element having temperature monitoring and method for temperature monitoring
AssigneeRobert Bosch GmbH
InventorJiahang Jin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention relates to a temperature monitoring for switching elements, in particular for a module having bipolar transistors with an insulated gate. For this purpose, the current operating parameters of the IGBT module are detected and, on the basis of said operating parameters, an expected temperature of the switching element is determined at a predetermined position. Said expected temperature is compared with a temperature detected at this position. If the actual temperature exceeds the expected temperature, then this is an indication of a malfunction.
Claims10
A switching element having temperature monitoring, the switching element comprising:
- an IGBT module (1) including a first plurality of IGBT chips and a second plurality of IGBT chips, wherein the collector terminals of the first plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a first terminal (A1) of the IGBT module (1), and the emitter terminals of the first plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a node (K), and wherein the collector terminals of the second plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to the node (K), and the emitter terminals of the second plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a second terminal (A2) of the IGBT module (1);
- a first temperature sensor (11) which is designed to detect a chip temperature at a predetermined position of the IGBT module (1);
- a second temperature sensor (12) which is designed to detect an ambient temperature in the vicinity of the IGBT module (1);
- a current sensor (10) which is designed to detect an electric current which flows into the IGBT module (1) at the node (K) of the IGBT module (1);
- and
- a monitoring device (20) which is designed to
- ascertain a limit temperature, using the electric current detected via the current sensor (10) and the ambient temperature detected via the second temperature sensor (12), and
- to detect a malfunction of the IGBT module (1), based on a comparison of the ascertained limit temperature to the chip temperature detected via the first temperature sensor (11).
A method for monitoring the temperature of an IGBT module (1) including a first plurality of IGBT chips and a second plurality of IGBT chips, wherein the collector terminals of the first plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a first terminal (A1) of the IGBT module (1), and the emitter terminals of the first plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a node (K), and wherein the collector terminals of the second plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to the node (K), and the emitter terminals of the second plurality of IGBT chips are electrically coupled to a second terminal (A2) of the IGBT module (1), the method comprising:
- detecting (S1) a chip temperature at a predetermined position of the IGBT module (1);
- detecting (S2) an ambient temperature in the vicinity of the IGBT module (1);
- detecting (S3) an electric current which flows into the IGBT module (1) at the node (K) of the IGBT module (1);
- ascertaining (S5) a limit temperature, using the detected electric current and the detected ambient temperature;
- comparing (S6) the ascertained limit temperature to the detected chip temperature;
- and
- detecting (S7) a malfunction of the IGBT module (1) if the detected chip temperature exceeds the ascertained limit temperature.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.