An Electromagnetic Circuit Simulator For Power Electronics

With the upcoming of wide bandgap semiconductors, transistors in power electronics can be used with higher switching frequencies, up to several tens of megahertzes. In the rising and falling edges of the pulse generated by transistors even higher frequencies are present. At these frequencies the conductors in the circuits will act as transmission lines. This means reflections can occur in case of poor impedance matching which can double the voltages across the electrical components. Also energy will be lost due to radiation. This radiation can interact with neighbouring circuits. Therefore classical circuit solvers like SPICE cannot simulate these circuits accurately at high switching frequencies. A method for solving the full equations of Maxwell for circuits with discrete non-linear, non-ideal elements is presented. To this end the method of moments is used in combination with a classical circuit simulator. Both operate in the frequency domain. A few methods to greatly accelerate the calculations are also presented. The methods are implemented and tested in Matlab®.