Power superhero 

Food, medicines, vehicle components - wherever something is manufactured, processed, or transported, machine axes must be moved in a defined manner. Reliable drive technology is needed to ensure that this also works under demanding industrial conditions. And in many industrial plants, the drive technology comes from Siemens.

"We have developed a disruptive approach that completely rethinks the structure of the power unit inside the frequency converter of the drive," Stefan Pfefferlein tells us. He is part of a team at Motion Control of Siemens Digital Industries in Erlangen, Germany, and is being honored for his contribution to this approach as Siemens "Inventor of the Year 2021" in the Newcomers category.

The hardware used for drive technology includes controllers, motors, couplings, gearboxes, and frequency converters. And it's the part that few non-experts are familiar with that is central: The frequency converter ensures that the drive that moves things receives electrical voltage in precisely the form it needs. How reliable a frequency converter is in doing this also depends heavily on the power unit at its core. A robust power unit with networked power electronics can improve the system's reliability and enable closer connection to digital worlds.

In a laboratory area integrated into the office work environment at the Innovation Center for Applied Power Electronics, the Erlangen experts around Stefan Pfefferlein have the opportunity to examine newly designed, simulated, and built prototypes. The team is based at the site's Innovation Center for Applied Power Electronics. They move between real and digital worlds.

In their lab corner, new approaches that have been designed and simulated digitally approach to the real world: microscope, soldering station, and measurement equipment is used to examine new sample parts. "Power semiconductors are subjected to very high temperatures and voltages. This puts a lot of stress on the material and the connections," explains Stefan Pfefferlein. "We can check and analyze here whether cracks or other defective spots have developed as a result of our accelerated life tests."

Thanks to innovative inventions by Stefan Pfefferlein, the team was able to make the design and connection technology of the power unit more planar than before. This results in many advantages in the frequency converter. "We can improve reliability and thus enable higher power densities in the product," explains Stefan Pfefferlein. "And we get by with less material in the process, so we use fewer resources, and the component becomes significantly more compact."

The team has already shown in its demonstrator that this innovative power unit works and could become a kind of superhero for power electronics. "If we succeed in realizing the advantages of our new assembly and connection technology in products, this can bring about disruptive changes and mean real added value for customers," Stefan Pfefferlein expects.