Ea. Mcshane et al., An improved approach to application-specific power electronics education -Curriculum development, IEEE EDUCAT, 44(3), 2001, pp. 282-288
This paper presents an innovative power electronics curriculum spanning the
undergraduate and graduate programs. The curriculum develops the basic con
cepts of the field and applies them to modern industrial challenges to solv
e practical problems. It is based on three fundamental disciplines: switchi
ng devices, circuits and topologies, and control and drives. The curriculum
, which will facilitate the development of optimal systems, bridges the gap
between power semiconductor devices and circuit design. An underlying prin
ciple of the curriculum is the development of optimal application-specific
power electronics systems, achieved primarily through optimization of power
semiconductor devices. The curriculum is described in detail with an empha
sis on the courses pertaining to power semiconductor device physics and con
verter circuit design. The role of advanced computer-aided design tools is
also identified and shown to facilitate an application-specific device desi
gn and optimization methodology. To further illustrate the effectiveness of
this approach, two industry-relevant course projects performed in the curr
iculum are presented in detail.