Power Electronics Packaging

Optocouplers use photonic coupling to provide electrical isolation to sensitive low voltage circuitry. The majority of optocouplers available on the market today are rated for 125°C or less. This project focuses on the development of an optocoupler able to withstand high temperatures (>125°C) with an emphasis on gate drive application.

Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) is commonly used in high temperature and RF applications as a multi-layer circuit board. To be able to implement this substrate into the world of power electronics improvements need to be made to the electrical and thermal conductivity of the interconnects that are conventionally used. Nano3D Systems is a small company out of Corvallis, OR and they specialize in electrochemical plating of various metals. This project investigates the advantages of plating copper interconnects onto the LTCC instead of the metallic pastes used today. Implementation of LTCC in a power electronics substrate may be realized due to the improved electrical and thermal properties of copper.

The goal of the radar consortium is to develop new technologies in the areas of packaging, miniaturization and Radio Frequency (RF) science and research.  This includes research from the materials used for the substrates and capacitors, to the manufacturing processes used for production, to the system level design of different radar schemes and antennas.