IPOSIM SPICE: power simulation with real-world accuracy

We're using simulation. You can get answers much, much quicker than if you would go to the lab and set up everything. So as I said, it's very time intensive, resource intensive, but on a PC, you can get answers much more quickly, right? You do not need to be a simulation expert actually to use this, right? So it's easy to use and very accessible. And I guess this is one of the reasons why it's so popular. This is the podcast for engineers. The podcast you just have to listen to if you're interested in what's going on in the semiconductor market. Today, I'm talking to our guest Paul Sochua, who is a principal engineer for Power Electronics, Simulation and Modeling. Paul, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me on the podcast. We're so happy to have you because iPosM and simulation is one of my favorite topics. And we just had a new release for iPosM called iPosM Spice, where we integrate Spice models to give our customers a little bit more flexibility in their design process. But before we get into what's new about iPosM Spice, I thought we could take it back a bit to the very beginning and how you could explain a little bit about how engineers have been simulating before iPosM and simulation, virtual simulation. Yeah, so I mean simulation is actually a very deep topic and it requires quite a bit of understanding and know how. So it's not as easy as it might sound that you just install some program, download the model and then you start running your simulation and get results which actually help you. There's actually quite a learning curve there. And one of the, let's say, benefits of iPosM is that it is relatively easy and accessible to many engineers. I mean, there's a lot of, let's say, electrical engineers out there which have a lot of a very deep understanding on the circuitry and on the devices, but maybe are not simulation experts. And for these users, iPosM is actually a relatively easy to use tool where they can basically check the device performance under different conditions in various application conditions or application circuits. Yeah, and get ideas about how the device they're looking for, for example, would be performing. Okay, so basically simulation is then a virtual lab environment. Kind of replacing as we go to a more digital society and our work becomes more and more digital, we're taking this trial and error that used to happen in the lab and making it, putting it in a computer. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, these engineers I talked about, who have a lot of know-how on the circuit and applications, but without being, let's say, simulation experts, what they have been doing so far is basically they have been building up prototypes in the lab with various devices and circuit configurations. And they have been measuring this and debugging this and evaluating this. And that is how, let's say, the classical power electronics circuit development has been done for the past, let's say, yeah, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years. So it was a lot of time consuming though. Yeah, it is, I mean, a lab and first of all, you need a lab, right? You need a lab which is equipped and very often these kind of lab setups are extremely time consuming because you really need to, it's not just that you need a circuit. You also need controllers, you need to have proper measurement setup. So on one hand, it's very resource intensive, right? That you need a lot of equipment, but it's also very time intensive, right? Like, characterizing devices in a lab setup takes a lot of time. And now- Okay, so there actually are engineers that actually just building prototypes of a real system and testing it. Well, yeah, I mean, let's say if it's a full, there are different stages of how somebody like a development engineer would work. I mean, for example, if you want to evaluate the device performance or power semiconductor performance, you would likely not build up a full-fledged system with everything, but you would start maybe with a certain part and then evaluate this part, right? And then once he satisfied, you would go to the next level and include more components. And in the end, you would test the whole system, right? Yeah, but all of this is quite time consuming, right? So it takes a lot of time, resources. And yeah, I mean, it's just these days, the development cycles have to become shorter and shorter. So you need to get answers much, much faster than that. Okay, so you really described simulation at its basic level in a lab. What's the next step? What's the first integration of digital tools when it comes to simulation? So there are different levels where you can simulate, right? So you can simulate more on the power semiconductor device level, then you can simulate more on the, let's say, circuit level and then you can simulate more on a system level, right? Like the system level would, for example, be when you have solar inverter would be, for example, that you include things like a grid connection and the PV panels and including all the controls. The device level would be to see how the semiconductor device is performing under, yeah, on, on, on, on, on, like inside it's, it's a power conversion circuit. And then let's say, for example, the, what is in between this, this, what I usually like to call circuit level simulation, there you include more things like filters and maybe also parts of the controls, but you might not simulate, you would only look, simulate a certain amount of time, not the fully fletched, not the fully fletched circuits system simulation, which really includes everything. Okay, why would engineers need to simulate? It has, I would say there's various reasons, right? First of all, is using simulation, you can get answers much, much quicker than if you would go to the lab and set up everything. So as I said, it's very time intensive, resource intensive, but on, yeah, on, on a PC, you can get answers much more quickly, right? Especially when you want to see how the, how your device or circuit is performing under different conditions. So if you want to do parameter sweeps and so on, doing this in a lab environment is typically very, yeah, time and resource intensive, right? So it gives you results much quicker, but also you can very often in the lab, you're not really sure whether what you're really measuring is really true or not. So the simulation also gives you more, it gives you more a kind of, how's it called? Like an kind of real world? Yeah, kind of a check, I mean, whether because it's more ideal conditions, right? And you can really verify the circuit under ideal conditions, but you can, then also of course go one or two steps higher where you include more and more influences, right? So for, yeah, also debugging purposes, this is very nice because you can see how the device or your circuit is operating under various kinds of conditions, yeah, without actually generating these conditions in the lab. So very often, this is difficult, right? So for example, when it comes to temperature, right? So devices are characterized at 175 degrees. So doing this in the lab is because not so easy, but in simulations, no problem at all. Okay, so it really gives you more control of the environment and all of the aspects that you want to test for. Exactly. And also, of course, there's also other types of let's say use cases, for example, certain types of tests, which are let's say destructive also, for example, shot circuit tests and so on. So these kind of tests, if you do them in the lab, it usually means that some, I mean, either the device is destroyed or maybe part of your setup. But in a simulation, you can do whatever, whatever kind of these destructive tests you want to do. And yeah, basically the device will never fail in a simulation. So without the fire alarms going off. Exactly. So it's much safer and easier to do these kind of special types of simulations, which otherwise would be very tedious to do in the lab. Okay. So tell me about iPod Sim. So iPod Sim at infinity has been around for many, many years. It's a favorite. It's used widely used. Tell me a little about iPod Sim before we get into the new iPod Sim. Yeah. So iPod Sim is our infinity and online simulator. Yeah, application online simulator. So it allows for evaluating the performance of different power semi conductor devices. So for example, silicon, IGBT. So discrete and modules, silicon, carbide, MOSFETs. And you can evaluate the performance of these devices in various types of application circuits. Right. So for example, three-phase inverter or soft switching DC DC converter. So we have different types of circuits. And you can basically select a device and evaluate how this device would be operating. Yeah, in this kind of circuit environment. And it's very easy to use. Right. So this is one of the, yeah. Let's say selling points that you do not need to be a simulation expert actually to use this. Right. Okay. And but iPod Sim spice comes with an added layer of detail. Right. Exactly. And spice models. Yeah. Okay. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, exactly. So let's say the device models, which are included in our let's call them classic iPod Sim. They are based on data sheet conditions and the values which are specified in the data sheet. Now one thing which is important to understand is that the conditions, which are specified in the data sheet. They are, they have been let's say measured in a lab. So these are kind of lab conditions under let's say ideal conditions, right. And usually like when the customer or the user is buying the devices and using them in their let's say own application. The for example, switching energies which are stated in the data sheet. They will likely be different and also the switching performance in his own application. And the reason for this is this that power semiconductor devices are extremely complicated. And they have a lot of dependencies. They the performance depends strongly on the circuit conditions and on the operating conditions. Right. So if you have a different type of operating condition, then of course the switching behavior will also be different. And this is one point where we try now to let's say fill the gap, right. To offer customers or users. Yeah, more flexibility in adapting. Conditions in the simulation to their own application conditions. Okay. So for an example, one of our customers may have an application and EV charger or something that's in a human condition with different temperature variations. Is that so can you explain a little bit how they would use I person spicy to simulate that. Yeah, exactly. So, so what you can actually influence in I put some spice is the operating conditions of the semiconductor device. So as I mentioned, the standard I put some models are based on data sheet conditions. So there you have typically one gate voltage. And the values are specified under certain strain ductance and dead time and gate resistance. However, now the customer or the user. They might want to use this power semi conductor device under different conditions. Right. For example, different gate voltage. He has a different strain ductance. He wants to use a certain gate driver. He has he wants to have a certain dead time and all of these circuit and operating conditions, you can actually input. I mean into the degree and then have the simulation run under exactly these specific conditions, right. So the customer can compare. Yeah. How much is the performance actually changing when I change certain operating conditions. Right. So this is something which was not possible so far with I person. But yeah, now with I person spice. This is this becomes possible. Okay, it sounds like a lot of different flexibility. For what products do we have I put some spice available. So at the moment, I put some spice is available for silicon carbide discreet. So this is these are the products where we are starting with. However, like in the upcoming months, we will also include other power semi conductor devices such as modules. And we also want to include silicon MOSFET silicon IGBT. Yeah, so we want to extend the devices which are supported to basically the whole power semi conductor conf portfolio, which infinity is offering. One more thing. So one thing, which is also special is that with I person spice, it's also possible to select specific gate drivers. Right. So we at infinity, we have a very broad portfolio of gate drivers and these gate drivers have a large influence on the device behavior. And the user can select different gate drivers. Yeah, according to their application needs and compare the performance using these different type of gate drivers. So the release we are starting with I think around 35 gate drivers, but also here we will extend this to the whole. So we will definitely need the portfolio in the future. So that's our plan. Okay, really exciting. And before we wrap up, I wanted to ask a little bit for in case it's not clear for some of our audience. When would someone choose I person versus I person spice or vice versa? When would someone really need I person spice? Yeah. Yeah, very good question. So the standard, let's say, I person is more for rough product selection, I would say. So just to give you an example. So for silicon carbide 1200 volt, our gen two, I think we have. In one package around 30 different products. And very very often it's not really clear which one with product to choose from or let's say if you want to compare like silicon covered with an IGBT to get to get a rough estimation. And how would these device perform in my application, you would go with the standard I person. But then let's say if you want to have more custom tuning, right. So you have more specific conditions in your application and you want to see how the device which I selected would be performing in my application, then you would go the next step with I person spice, where you can have all these customizations. Which then will give you more, let's say accuracy or more detailed picture. Okay, so maybe the first first step in designing would be then the regular I person just to get a good idea for what products fit and I person spice is the next layer. Okay. Where can our customers find I person spice. Yeah, so I put some spice is part of our, yeah, I person simulation platform. It's integrated in the in the standard I person and currently all the models, which are the all the products which are supported by I person spice. So yeah, they have a chili icon. So you can easily identify them. So at the moment as I said it's exactly. So at the moment it's only the silicon carbide devices, the discreet which are supported. But now and more and more devices will be included. Yeah, you will basically be able to identify. identify them by checking for the chili icon. - Okay, Paul, thank you so much for being here and walking us through the latest developments of Ipossim and the world of simulation at Infinian. - Yeah, thanks a lot for the opportunity being on the show. - And to our audience, if you are interested in Ipossim, Ipossim Spice or any of the other simulation tools we offer at Infinian, please visit our website or I'll also leave some interesting links in the show notes below. And for future episodes, stay tuned. We've got a lot more to cover on Power Simic Connectors.