26 Power Management July 2022

Model-Based Power Converter

Design using High-Confidence
MOSFET Models
When designing a power converter, simulation models can be used to help trade-off multiple design
criteria. Simple switch-based models of active devices are used for fast simulation, enabling more
engineering insights. However, simple device models do not invoke the same confidence level in a
design as a detailed manufacturer device model can.
By Radovan Vuletic, Infineon Technologies and Rick Hyde, MathWorks
This article looks at how the power converter designer can use the Buck converter design example
system-level and detailed models together to enable exploration of A 48V/12V DC/DC step-down buck converter shown in Figure 1 is
A 48V/12V DC/DC step-down buck converter shown in Fig. 1 is used as the example in this
the design space and also achieve high confidence in the results. used as the example in this paper. A buck converter steps down the
A 48V/12V paper.DC/DCAstep-down buck converter
buck converter steps down shown in Fig.
the input 1 is used
voltage as to
(V_IN) theaexample in this
lower-level output voltage
An example of this process will be shown
paper. A buck using MathWorks
converter steps system-theinput
downequation voltage
voltage(V_IN)
inputcharacterizing
(V_IN)to a lower-level
tobehavior output
a lower-level voltage
output (V_OUT), and the
voltage
(V_OUT), and the
® and Simscape™ with detailed SPICE
main its is given by:
level modelling tools Simulink
(V_OUT), main equation
and the main equation characterizing characterizing
its behavior is given its
by:behavior is given by:
subcircuits representing Infineon Automotive MOSFETs.
Equation 1 Equation 1
Introduction
Equation 1
V_OUT
During the development of electrical power converters, numeri-
V_OUT d = V_IN ⇒ V_OUT = d ∗ V _IN
d=
cal simulations are typically used during the concept and feasibil- ⇒ V_OUT = d ∗ V _IN
V_IN
ity study. The simulation models need to include both the analog
where d represents the itch (HS_SW). The
circuit and the corresponding digital
where Examples of the where d represents the duty cycleitch
controllers.the
d represents of the high side power switch
(HS_SW).
duty cycle of the low side by: The
design questions that models cancycle
duty help answer include:
of the low side (HS_SW). The duty cycle of the low by: side power switch (LS_SW) is
Equation 2 given by d’ defined by:
Which topology should be used?
Equation 2
• For a given topology, what performance can be achieved? Equation 2
• What PWM switching frequency should be used? d! = 1 − d
d! = 1 − d
• What values and ratings are required for the passive compo-
nents? Fig. 1
• What kind of power switch should be used: Fig. 1
• type (like MOSFETs or IGBTs or BJTs)?
Based on the reference voltage (V_ref) and measured output voltage (V_meas), the
• technology and voltageBased
ratingson(like
the Infineon’s
referenceOptiMOS™
voltage or and measured output voltage (V_meas), the
(V_ref)
discrete-time proportional plus integral voltage controller calculates required duty cycle (d).
CoolMOS™) and materials (like Si or SiC or GaN)?
discrete-time proportional plus integral voltage controller calculates required duty cycle (d).
• What are the requirements on the gate driver circuits
Infineon SPICE including
MOSFET model
Infineon SPICE MOSFET model
minimum required dead-time?
Finally, based on previous assessments: SPICE (“Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis”) simulators are the most
SPICE (“Simulation
commonly-used Programtechnology
with Integrated Circuit
for analog Emphasis”)
circuit simulation. simulators are the
Therefore, most
as de-facto industrial
• System efficiency and component losses may be estimated, and
commonly-used standard,technology for analog circuit
many semiconductor simulation. Therefore,
manufacturers develop SPICE as de-facto
models industrial
of their products to
subsequently a suitable cooling system
standard, many cansemiconductor
be developed; manufacturers develop SPICE models of their products to
support circuit design.
• The trade-off of system efficiency with EM
support circuit compatibility can be
design.
investigated. Switching losses and EMI are bothportfolio
Infineon's dependent on
of automotive qualified OptiMOS™ power MOSFETs offer benchmark
switching frequency and power switch
Infineon's slew
portfolio rate.
of automotive
quality in a range from 20V-300V, qualified OptiMOS™
diversified power
packages MOSFETs and an offer benchmark
Rds(on) down to 0.55 mΩ.
quality in a Structure
range from of 20V-300V,
typical Infineon’s Figure
diversifiedSPICE 1: Structure
packages
model and
of of buck
an R(Step-Down)
MOSFET is
ds(on) down
shown DC/DC
to 0.55power
on mΩ. converter
SPICE simulation tools are the go-to solution for circuit designers.
Structure ofFig.typical
2. Infineon’s
This behavioral SPICE model of
MOSFET MOSFET
model [1] is shownboth
describes on the electrical and thermal
bodospower.com

However, the design steps described depend on being able to sim-

Fig. 2. This characteristics
behavioral MOSFET of the powermodel switch.
[1]
Based describes
on the both the electrical
reference and thermal
voltage (V_ref) and measured output volt-
ulate the power converter in reasonable time.
characteristics of theCircuit
powersimulation
switch. age (V_meas), the discrete-time proportional plus integral voltage
tools like Simscape™ Electrical™ have simple device models that
controller calculates required duty cycle (d).
are essentially ideal switches plus tabulated switching losses which Fig. 2
meet this efficient simulation need. Moreover, tight integration Infineon Fig. 2SPICE MOSFET model
with Simulink® means that the digital controller is also included in SPICE (“Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis”) sim-
The model reflects that current flowing through the MOSFET causes changes in
the simulation with no needThe for model
co-simulation. However,
reflects that current
semiconductor the ideal ulatorsin-turn,
flowing through
temperature which, are
the the
MOSFETmost commonly-used
influences causes changes
the MOSFET technology
inelectricalfor analog circuit
parameters
switch assumption creates some uncertainty
semiconductor for the
temperature later design
which, simulation.
in-turn, influences Therefore,
the MOSFET as de-facto
such as charge carrier mobility, voltage threshold, drain resistance, gate-drain capacitance industrial
electrical standard,
parameters many semi-
Bodo´s Power Systems® ·

steps focused on determining such as charge

efficiency carrier mobility,
and fine-tuning
and gate-source the voltage threshold,
design.
capacitance. conductor drain
Referringmanufacturers
to Fig.resistance,
2, thermal gate-drain
develop SPICEcapacitance
behavior ismodels
modeled of their
in theproducts
and gate-source
This uncertainty can be addressed following
by using capacitance.
detailedway:SPICE Referring
a current
device sourceto support
to Fig.
(Pv) 2, thermal
representing behavior
circuit design. MOSFET is modeled
dissipated in the
power injects the heat
following way:
models developed by the component intoathe current
manufacturer. source
PN-junction
In (Pjv),) representing
(T
this paper, that heatMOSFET
andInfineon’s is then dissipatedall
propagated power
the injects
way the heat
through MOSFET
portfolio of automotive qualified OptiMOS™ power MOS-
into thefast
a process is defined that enables PN-junction
package
exploration (T
to j),ofand
the case
the that (Theat
design is then
c). The propagated
thermal dynamics allisthe way through
modeled as a CauerMOSFET network made up of
FETs offer benchmark quality in a network
range from 20V-300V, diversified
space whilst also capitalizingpackage to lumped
the case
on the detailed (TcSPICE
thermal
foundry ). The thermal dynamics
resistances
compo- (Rthi) andisthermal
modeled as a Cauer
capacitances (Cthi). By mademeansup of of
analog
lumped thermal resistances
simulation (R ) and packages
thermal and
capacitancesan R (C down
). By to
sink (Rth HS and Cth HS) can be Infi-
0.55
means mΩ.
of Structure
analog of typical
use ofofmultiple
the thermalmod-model, the optimum cooling/heat
thi ds(on) thi
nent models. Central to the process is making
simulation of the thermal
determined for model,
given neon’scooling/heat
the optimum
design parameters SPICElike model
load ofcurrent,
sink MOSFET is shown
(Rth HSmaximum
and on
Cth HS)allowed
canFigure 2. This behav-
be junction
els with differing levels of fidelity, matching the model the specific
determinedtemperature
for given design (Tj), parameters
ambient temperature like load
ioral MOSFET current,
(Tambmodel
) andmaximum
[1] describesallowed
thickness/number bothjunction
the electrical
of PCB layers and(Rthermal
th PCB
design question to be answered. Also important
temperature is the temperature
(Tj),Cambient use of low- (T ) and thickness/number of PCB layers (R
and th PCB ). characteristics
amb of the power switch. th PCB
fidelity levels to pre-initialize detailed
and Cth PCBsimulation
). models thereby
reducing initialization time. Importing a subcircuit into Simscape
Importing a subcircuit into Simscape
July 2022 Power Management 27

lation time for one controller PWM cycle is 2.3 seconds on an Intel®
Core™ i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz running MATLAB version R2021b.
This is fast enough to analyze circuit performance at current op-
erating state, but not to assess circuit sensitivity to design param-
eter sweeps or to directly optimize the circuit parameters. Further-
more, it is not fast enough to simulate to a periodic steady state
which, given a thermal time constant of approximately 10 seconds,
equates to 200,000 20kHz PWM cycles.

Figure 2: Schematic of Infineon's SPICE MOSFET model structure

The model reflects that current flowing through the MOSFET causes
changes in semiconductor temperature which, in-turn, influences
the MOSFET electrical parameters such as charge carrier mobil-
ity, voltage threshold, drain resistance, gate-drain capacitance and
gate-source capacitance. Referring to Figure 2, thermal behavior is
modeled in the following way: a current source (Pv) representing
MOSFET dissipated power injects the heat into the PN-junction (Tj),
and that heat is then propagated all the way through MOSFET pack-
age to the case (Tc). The thermal dynamics is modeled as a Cauer
network made up of lumped thermal resistances (Rthi) and thermal
capacitances (Cthi). By means of analog simulation of the thermal
Figure 4: Detailed model of the buck converter
model, the optimum cooling/heat sink (Rth HS and Cth HS) can be de-
termined for given design parameters like load current, maximum
To address the need to explore the design space efficiently, a sys-
allowed junction temperature (Tj), ambient temperature (Tamb) and
tem-level version of the buck converter model created. For this, the
thickness/number of PCB layers (Rth PCB and Cth PCB).
imported MOSFET device models are replaced with ideal switches
Importing a subcircuit into Simscape with fixed on-resistance set to the datasheet Rds(on) value. This is
Simscape [5] from MathWorks provides a block diagram environ- shown in Figure 5. Some of the faster parasitics are also omitted,
ment to model multi-domain systems, including electrical, mechan- such as the MOSFET lead inductances. This system-level model is
ical, magnetic and thermal aspects. The accompanying Simscape fixed temperature, the user setting an appropriate Rds(on) value for
language expresses the underlying physics using differential equa- the assumed junction temperature. The model takes around 0.05
tions, associated algebraic constraints, events and mode charts. seconds to simulate one PWM cycle, 46 times faster than the de-
tailed model. As there are no thermal time constants, the slowest
dynamic is now associated with the voltage regulation and is of the
order of 5ms or 100 PWM cycles. Hence simulation to steady state
takes approximately 5 seconds.
With this simulation performance, the system-level model can be
used to thoroughly explore the design space and optimize the con-
troller. With the main design decisions made, the final step is to
validate the design using the detailed simulation model that makes
use of the Infineon MOSFET models. This validation is typically
Figure 3: Infineon’s Automotive MOSFET IAUT300N08S5N012 in TOLL
reported at a set of operating points defined by load power and
(PG-HSOF-8)
ambient temperature. However, we have seen that to simulate the
detailed model to steady state requires 200,000 PWM cycles which
Simscape Electrical™ [6] is able to import a targeted set of SPICE is not practical if each cycle takes 2.3 seconds to simulate.
device models, such as MOSFETs, into an equivalent Simscape lan-
guage implementation [7]. Simscape’s tight integration with Simu-
link then enables simulating both the digital controller and the ana-
log electronics with a single solver, this resulting in a more efficient
bodospower.com

simulation than co-simulation between different simulation tools.

The SPICE model import capability is used to import the Infineon
IAUT300N08S5N012 [2][4] device (shown on Figure 3) into Sims-
cape. Once imported into Simscape, some minor edits were made
to the Simscape code to provide access to the Cauer model states
from the published block. Providing customized access to the inter-
nal states is needed for the initialization process.
Bodo´s Power Systems® ·

Simulation workflow
Having imported the Infineon device into Simscape, the next step is Figure 5: System-level Simulink model of the buck power converter
to create a Simulink model of the complete converter including the
To initialize the detailed model at a specified operating point, an
imported Infineon devices, remaining analog components and the
iterative approach involving multiple models is proposed. Overall,
controller. This is shown in Figure 4.
the idea is to separate out slower time constants into separate
The controller is implemented using Simulink discrete-time library models that run faster. Before explaining in more detail, one more
blocks, and the complete model is simulated using a variable-step model is required which is one that models the MOSFET and envi-
solver so that the faster time constants associated with parasitics ronment thermal states only. This is shown in Figure 6.
and the MOSFET charge model are accurately captured. The simu-
 28 Power Management July 2022

To construct the thermal-only model, the imported Infineon SPICE implement two or three MOSFETs in parallel for both the high-side
subcircuits are edited to leave just the Cauer network. The input and low-side switches. The important thing to note is that there can
to the two Cauer networks are two constant heat flow sources Q1 be a high-level of confidence in this result given that the validated
and Q2 which represent the average junction heat flow per PWM foundry SPICE MOSFET models were used to generate them and
cycle. This thermal-only model can either be run to steady state, or that the results are for the actual circuit. This gives a higher-level
the Simscape start from steady state option used. Either way, the of confidence than the sometimes-used alternative based on data-
time to solve the Cauer network node temperatures is negligible sheet plots of on-state and switching losses for a representative
compared to everything else. test circuit.

Figure 8: Proposed simulation flow for switching power converters

A summary of the overall process followed is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 6: Simulink thermal only model of the two MOSFETs
The process is implemented as a MATLAB® script which can be
The three models are now used to initialize the detailed model in downloaded from MathWorks File Exchange [3]. The script takes
periodic steady state as follows: four minutes to run and produce the results in Figure 7. For com-
1. Run the System-level model (Figure 4) to periodic steady state. parison, it was determined that running the non-linear model from
Average the MOSFET losses over the last full PWM period to a non-initialized state to get to the same results takes of the order
give estimates for the junction losses, Q1 and Q2. of a day.
2. Run the Thermal-only model (Figure 6) to thermal steady state
Conclusions
and record the final temperatures for the nodes of the two
It has been shown how detailed SPICE foundry semiconduc-
Cauer models.
tor models can be used in an application circuit model to make
3. Set the Detailed model’s (Figure 5) thermal states equal to the
high-confidence predictions about expected circuit performance.
values from Step 2 above, and set the remaining model states
The challenge of initializing a model with widely varying time con-
to the values determined from Step 1 above.
stants and with a periodic steady state has been tackled with a
4. Run the Detailed model for four complete PWM cycles. Aver-
two-pronged approach. Firstly, avoidance of slow co-simulation is
age the MOSFET losses over the last full PWM period to give
achieved by importing SPICE subcircuits into Simulink, and solving
revised estimates for the junction losses, Q1 and Q2.
the complete analog system plus controller using a variable-step
5. Repeat Step 2 to revise the thermal node temperatures.
solver. Secondly, the steady state is found by using multiple mod-
6. Repeat Step 4 to revise the initial states and junction losses
els with differing fidelity levels with a simple iterative scheme. The
estimate.
end result is an end-to-end design and simulation capability that is
Steps 5 and 6 can be repeated if needed, but for this example this faster than if working solely with a SPICE simulation engine.
was not necessary. The model is now sufficiently close to a periodic
References
steady state, and circuit performance can now be assessed.
1. März, M., Nance, P., “Thermal Modeling of Power-electronic Sys-
Figure 7 shows the instantaneous switching losses when powering tems,” February 2000. Available online at www.infineon.com/
a 2.85kW load, plus the overall converter efficiency. This level of ef- dgdl/Thermal+Modeling.pdf?fileId=db3a30431441fb5d011472f
ficiency is on the low side, and the designer’s next step might be to d33c70aa3..
2. Huang, A., “Infineon OptiMOSTM Power MOSFET Datasheet Ex-
bodospower.com

planation,” Application Note AN 2012-03 V1.1 March 2012. Avail-

able online at www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-MOSFET_Opti-
MOS_datasheet_explanation-AN-v01_00-EN.pdf?fileId=db3a304
33b47825b013b6b8c6a3424c4.
3. Vuletic, R., Hyde, R., John., D., “Infineon Buck Simscape Ex-
ample,“ MathWorks File Exchange, February 2022. Avail-
able online at https://de.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/
fileexchange/106925-infineon-buck-simscape-example.
Bodo´s Power Systems® ·

4. Available online at https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/

power/mosfet/automotive-mosfet/iaut300n08s5n012/
5. mathworks.com/help/physmod/simscape
6. mathworks.com/help/physmod/sps
7. mathworks.com/help/physmod/simscape/get-started-with-sim-
scape-language.html

www.infineon.com
Figure 7: Losses in power switches and efficiency of overall system www.mathworks.com