G.E.

C REWA SESSION 2008-09

INTRODUCTION
Transportation represents today about 25% of the worldwide
CO2 emissions. What was considered the visionary dreams of "green
mavericks" a few years ago is now in the headlines: Hybrid and
electric vehicles are entering the market. The worldwide demand for
hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) is forecasted to advance at a rapid
pace. They could reach more that 5 million units already in 2013
representing about 6% of the worldwide vehicle demand (not
including trucks).

On the other hand, this also means that still 94% of all light
vehicles will run on "classical" combustion engines. And even hybrid
cars run the majority of the time on (downsized) gasoline engines.
This easily justifies the huge effort taken to improve the fuel
efficiency of the engines including their support systems like cooling
and fuel supply.

Keeping the fire alive Direct injection for diesel and

gasoline engines

The introduction of high pressure direct injection systems using

a "common rail" for fuel distribution at more than 1000 bar was a
major milestone in the evolution of diesel engines. The engines got
better performance and reduced emissions at a reduced noise level.
Solenoid injectors allow three to five injections per cycle, which
contributes to a controlled pressure distribution in the cylinder in
order to achieve a smoother engine run. Fig.1 shows a simplified

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power stage of a solenoid type "common rail direct injection" (CRDI)

system using "two banks" of injectors. While the injector current is
regulated on the high side with switches QH1A to QH2B, the
individual cylinder is selected by the low side switches QL1 to QL6.
The fast injector opening is enforced by the elevated booster voltage
VS2. After activating the injector with QH1A/2A, QH1B/2B are
taking over the current switching to VS1 at battery level, which is just
high enough to hold the selected injector open. The use of two
"banks" of two independent power stages as shown in Fig.1 allows
higher flexibility with regard to independent injection timing
between the cylinders in order to get higher performance. In compact
and mid-size cars, single bank systems are also used to reduce costs.

Figure 1: Generic Power Stage of a Solenoid Type CRDI system - For higher resolution,

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However, the evolution continues. Replacing solenoid injectors

with Piezo technology does have several significant advantages:

Piezo injectors are much faster, resulting in reduced dead times

and allowing more accurate control of the injected fuel amount. The
fast reaction also allows more injections per cycle (up to 15 and more)
reducing rapid pressure changes in the cylinder and nearly
eliminating the typical diesel noise.

At the begin of their volume production Piezo injectors had

problems with injector aging and reliability issues of the ceramic
stack, but all of the issues could be finally fixed by material
optimization and Piezo injectors have become mature today.

Generic Architecture of a Semi-Resonant Piezo Type DI System - For higher resolution,

Shows the simplified architecture of a Piezo direct injection

module. In this case it is a semi-resonant architecture where the
capacitive injector load and the serial choke are building a resonant

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tank. This architecture is in high volume production for years. Many

systems on the market today are using the CRDI architecture as well
for Piezo injectors, which need more components, but are easier to
control and require lower complexity in terms of the software.

Considering the component level only, the major difference

between solenoid and Piezo direct injection systems is the
significantly higher operating voltage. While solenoid systems run at
up to 120V boost voltage (VS2), Piezo system need a boost level of
250V-350V. For both architectures Fairchild Semiconductor offers
optimized power switches in trench and planar technology as well as
rectifiers.

From an architectural point of view, gasoline and diesel engine

control units (ECUs) are very similar. In gasoline engines, the old
fashioned port injector system is more and more being replaced by
high pressure direct injection. The major difference between the
ECUs for diesel and gasoline engines is the required output power of
the injector driver stage and the operating software. The very precise
control of the injected amount of fuel using a Piezo direct injection
allows a defined stratification of the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder.
The result is a very lean burn at significantly reduced fuel
consumption. On the other hand it's rather difficult to ignite a very
lean air-fuel mixture and there is also risk that there is incomplete,
non-homogeneous combustion. To overcome this challenge, the
multi-spark ignition needs to be used especially at low rpm or cold

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engine. To address these challenges Fairchild developed the

EcoSPARK' family of ignition IGBTs offering low VCESAT at the
highest energy capability per unit area in the industry.

Interfacing Power Beware of Transients

But what worth is the best MOSFET or IGBT without a proper

interface between the control circuit and the switch? That is why
Fairchild created the FAN708x family of high side and half-bridge
drivers targeted for direct injection applications. These are build in
HDG4, a dedicated high voltage process with a self-isolating
structure. Using a proprietary patent pending noise cancellation
technique these drivers are less noise sensitive than competing
devices, allow negative transients of more than -10V and feature
industry's lowest quiescent current for the supply and high-side
driver stage. In addition, delay times and thresholds are nearly
temperature independent eliminating duty cycle variations in the
application, which cause variations in the injected amount of fuel.

In order to avoid switching overlap of the power stages ("shoot-

through") the FAN7080 includes a programmable dead-time
function. Shoot-through not only reduces the efficiency and is a
potential risk for the power switches but has to be avoided also for
EMI reasons. However, the dead-time controls just the switching of
the power stage in forward current direction. Note, that also the
reverse current through the body diodes of the MOSFETs need to be
taken into account! Special care should be given to the layout of the

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PCB. Experience shows, that in many cases, when customers

complain about unsatisfying reliability of the power stage and non-
explainable driver failures an improper PCB layout is the root cause.

Power Stage Parasitic Effects and Transients - For higher resolution,

an example of an H-bridge circuit is shown, driving an inductive

load. The load current rises as long as Q2 and Q3 are turned on. The
current decreases, when Q1 and Q4 are turned on. The inductance
enforces the direction of the current flow. During the dead time,
current (IOFF) is flowing from ground thru the body diodes of Q1
and Q4 into the supply. At that instant, when Q2 and Q3 after the
dead time turn on again, a high current peak is flowing thru the body
diode of Q1 and the channel of Q3. This reverse recovery current

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causes a significant stress for Q3, because it has to absorb the reverse
recovery transient at potential near VBIAS.

Assuming Q3 can tolerate these transients, there is another risk:

if the reverse recovery current snaps off, node A slams down to
ground potential and may ring well below ground as a result of
circuit parasitics. Such ringing can destroy the driver's output stage,
if it is allowed to exceed the device's absolute max. ratings.
Observation of a proper layout with low impedance ground planes,
separate traces for driver and power ground as well as the addition
of a resistor in the gate return line will usually solve this problem.

Good designs have the gate driver placed very close to the
power switches with the gate traces shorter than 1 inch. When using
separate boards for power stage and control circuit, gate lines
NEVER should be going through the connectors. In extreme cases,
the introduction of a snubber circuit may be required to prevent
device overstress.

Getting the cheque What can be achieved?

A significant contribution to fuel consumption is also related to

engine support functions. By replacing mechanical components by
electrical systems efficiency could be further improved. Using a
brushless motor for engine cooling, the precise control and the
increased airflow allows reducing the volume of the cooling fluid.
This results in faster reaching the operating temperature of the

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combustion engine during warm up and also reduces the amplitude

of temperature excursions. The shortened warm up time does also
reduce the emissions and leads to longer lifetime of the engine.
Another contribution comes from the electrification of the cooling
pump. Just the introduction of optimized, speed controlled fans for
engine cooling can reduce the fuel consumption of a mid-size car by
up to 3%.(1)

Finally let's look what improvements can be achieved overall

with engine refinements and state-of-the-art engine management:

Citroen's new DPFS240 diesel engine in the C6 develops 177kW

at 3800rpm, up by 18%. The torque is 422Nm at 1500rpm, which is
17% higher than the previous generation engine. At the same time
fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are reduced by 15%.(2) The
E240CGI from Mercedes-Benz in the new E-Class produces 150kW
and 310Nm, 26% up to the previous comparable V6 unit with fuel
consumption and CO2 emissions cut by more than 20%. (3) This leads
to the conclusion that the engineering efforts taken did pay off. The
electrification of body control and convenience functions like power
steering and climate control have significant potential to further
improve the total overall efficiency.

Citroen, Mercedes-Benz, and any other trademarks are the

property of their respective owners.

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Dr.-Ing. Hans-Peter Hnes is Senior Manger Product Line Applications

Automotive for Fairchild Semiconductor

Literature:

(1) Automobilindustrie, No.6, 1998

(2) ATZ online, June 2009, www.atzonline.com

(3) Automotive engineering, June 2009, p.7

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