NEW GENERATION INVERTER CARD DESIGN

(NEW-GEN ICD)
ARÇELIK

PROJECT TEAM COMPANY MENTORS

Sümeyye Ayfer Akbaba Servet Palacıoğlu
Efe Akman Faruk Şükrü Türkuzan
Halil Saner Başkaya ACADEMIC MENTOR
Mustafa İlyas Çalışkan Prof. Abdullah Atalar
Umut Daban TEACHING ASSISTANT
İlter Onat Korkmaz

Abstract. The project aims to design an inverter card for refrigerators to in-
crease power efficiency by using new-generation components like GAN inte-
grated power modules (IPMs).

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 PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The project’s concept is to create an Arçelik refrigerator inverter card that will
have a power efficiency of above 97%. Arçelik currently uses an inverter card that
has a power efficiency of 95.5%; the three-phase inverter circuit is the source of
95% of this inverter card’s power dissipation. Because of their low power consump-
tion features, our outcome for this project is to improve the efficiency of inverter
circuits utilizing new-generation transistors, gallium nitrite.

The motivation for this project is rooted in the change in the electrical efficiency
levels in household products. Efficiency and electricity usage are the company’s
primary points of concern. The inverter card has a max efficiency of 94.5% and
dissipates approximately 65 W. The fact that worldwide power ratings rise every
year makes this problematic. The existing Arçelik inverter cards can only meet the
upgraded D and E class standards due to the rescaling of new energy efficiency
classes. The need for greater efficiency is driving the adoption of more efficient
topologies, technologies, and materials. The company refrigerators would be able
to proceed with higher class grades like C, B, or even A, once this project is fin-
ished. Since the majority of the electricity used by Arçelik’s refrigerators is con-
sumed by inverter cards, their carbon footprint and environmental impact would be
significantly reduced.

The novelty of our project lies in utilizing next-generation semiconductors, namely

Silicon Carbide and Gallium Nitrite, and field-oriented control algorithms for per-
manent magnet synchronous motors (FOC-PMSM) in order to achieve higher power
efficiency. By doing so, our inverter card achieves a higher power density, thus of-
fering greater efficiency and improved performance.

F IGURE 1. Big Picture

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 MILESTONES
The project has 4 major milestones which are Literature Review and Simula-
tions, Software Design (Motor Control Algorithm Design), Hardware Desing
(PCB Design), Testing and Verification.

TABLE 1. Table of Milestones.

Milestones Description
M1: Literature Review and Simulations Literature review is conducted
on inverter cards, new-gen tran-
sistors, IPMs, and motor control
workbenches. Then motor con-
trol algorithm simulations were
conducted by using MATLAB,
ST X-CUBE-MCSDK, and ST
Motor Pilot.
M2: Software Design Motor control algorithm is de-
signed in ST X-CUBE-MCSDK
and implemented on STEVAL-
IPM08B power board and to
meet the requirements
M3: Hardware Design Schematic and Layout of the
new PCB are designed on Al-
tium
M4: Testing and Verification Testing if the design satisfies all
the requirements such as power
efficiency and EMC so as to re-
ceive the approval of Arçelik

DESIGN DESCRIPTION
Literature Review and Simulations: The design process started with a liter-
ature review on field-oriented control (FOC), inverter card designs, novel transis-
tors, and motor control workbenches. By the end of this process, we decided to
use intelligent power modules (IPMs) in our design due to their potential for high
efficiency. Afterward a market search was done on IPM’s and MCU’s for our in-
verter design and we decided to use STM’s MASTERGAN GaN IPM’s alongside
an STM MCU, which allowed us to use their software environment to design our
motor control software. In parallel with all of this, power consumption measure-
ments were taken from an Arçelik refrigerator and an Arçelik inverter card in order
to provide a future reference for our design.

Software Design: In order to begin the software design process an inverter card
using an IPM was ordered from STM alongside a control board which had the same
MCU we would use on our design. A testing setup was made in the lab, initially
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with a 120V DC power supply which was later changed to a rectifier supplying the
inverter board with 314V, DC and an Arçelik compressor connected to the inverter
board. The ST Cube software tools were used for the software design process,
with ST Motor Control Workbench and Cube MX generating most of the necessary
code, Cube IDE being used to modify the code in order to run a compressor and
Motor Pilot being used to monitor the MCU during operation. By the end of this
software design process a motor control algorithm capable of smoothly running
Arçelik compressors within the desired RPM range was created.

F IGURE 2. Motor Control Algorithm Setup

F IGURE 3. Motor Pilot

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 Hardware Design: The hardware design process entirely took place on Altium
PCB designer and started with the drawing of schematics for different parts of the
PCB. The schematics were split into four parts: EMC stage, Power stage, Inverter
stage and MCU stage. The EMC stage was taken directly from Arçelik and the
other three stages were all designed by us. After getting approval from our aca-
demic and company mentors, the schematic design was completed and the layout
design process began. For the layout, the PCB was separated into four rooms, with
the EMC stage occupying the left edge, the power stage occupying the center, the
inverter stage occupying the top right and the MCU stage occupying the bottom
right. All three phases of the inverter were given an identical design to minimize
mismatches and the pinout and connections of the MCU were made identical to
the MCU used in the software development setup so that the code developed there
would also run on our PCB.

F IGURE 4. PCB Layout

Testing and Verification: No info yet

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 RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
No info yet

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

No info yet

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 R EFERENCES
[1] Surname N., Title of the paper, Journal, Vol.XX, No.XX, year, pp.XX-XX.
[2] Surname N., Title of the Book, Publisher, year, XX p.

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BEHIND THE SCENES