The interest in power electronics and power integrated circuits has been generated by new high voltage, high current semiconductor devices and the need for smart power devices and systems such as Flexible AC Transmission systems (FACTS). Our work has concentrated in the areas of: (i) modeling the devices (such as thyristors, GTO, power FET, optically controlled PIN diodes, etc.) for computer-aided design; and (ii) designing, building and testing power electronic circuits (Such as high speed circuit breakers, power converters and inverters, motor drives, etc.). We have developed a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model of the GTO for SPICE application and designed and built high speed circuit breakers: one uses a GTO while the other uses power FET's as the current blocking device.
The following publications illustrate our work in power electronics:
1. "A Computer-Aided GTO Model for Power Electronic Circuit Design," C. Tsay, R. Fischl and K. Pourrezaei), Proc. of 1989 IEEE Int. Symp. on Circuits and Systems, Portland, OR, pp 1835-8, May 1989.
2. "Electrical Terminations", R. Fischl and E. Stagliano, Construction Industry Final Report, Dec. 1988 "Solid State Circuit Breaker", R. Fischl, K. Pourrazseai and C. Grytko, Advanced Technology Center SPD Final Report, Nov 1988
