Thermal Analysis of a Submodule for Modular
Multilevel Converters
M. Wu Cong, Y. Avenas M. Miscevic
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, G2Elab LAPLACE Laboratory
F-38000 Grenoble, France Univ. Toulouse
martin.wu@schneider- Toulouse, France
electric.com marc.miscevic@laplace.univ-
tlse.fr
Abstract — This paper presents a loss calculation method
based on the selection of IGBTs and Diodes, and on an analysis
of conduction and switching losses in multilevel pulse width
modulation (PWM) systems. A comparison between the
Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) and other multilevel
topologies, adapted to medium voltage applications, will thus be
presented in order to highlight issues such as thermal disparity
within the power modules. The proposed method is applied to
the MMC topology to show the impact of the variation of
different operation parameters on the thermal behaviors,
especially with that of AC and DC currents.
Index Terms — Power module, Modular Multilevel
Converter, losses calculation, circulation currents.
I. INTRODUCTION
The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a promising
topology for high voltage and high power applications. It was
presented in 2002 [1-2] for High Voltage Direct Current
(HVDC) transmissions based on voltage source converter
(VSC) technology. Further applications like medium voltage
drives are also considered and of increasing interest [3]. In
this case, these converters have to deliver a variable output
frequency and usually apply pulse width modulation (PWM)
supply voltage.
Compared to other multilevel converter topologies, the
MMC offers advantages of modular conception and
construction, of high number of voltage levels which allows
higher efficiency [4], higher quality of output waveforms and
which reduces the filter requirement. Earlier studies [4-7]
have demonstrated that the realization of submodules depends
on different parameters, such as the converter topology,
semiconductor device type and capacitor voltage balancing
method. The present paper is specifically focused on thermal
management of power modules for MMC inverters.
Accordingly, a detailed analysis of the losses within each
switching device inside a basic submodule configuration, the
commonly called half-bridge using both insulated gate
This work was supported by Schneider Electric Technology, advanced
electronics and power electronics department, and by Association Nationale
de la Recherche et de la Technologie (ANRT).
978-1-4799-2325-0/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
M-X. Wang, R. Mitova, P. Lasserre
J-P. Lavieville PRIMES Platform
Schneider Electric Tarbes, France
Grenoble, France philippe.lasserre@primes-
miao-xin.wang@schneider- innovation.com
electric.com
bipolar transistors (IGBT) and anti-parallel diodes, will be
outlined. Furthermore a thermal simulation allows illustrating
the consequence of the thermal disparity inside a basic
submodule of the MMC converter. Besides, the influence of
the variation of operation parameters on the one of active loss
has also been studied.
II. PROPOSED COMPARISON STUDY
A. Current distribution in the MMC
Fig. 1 shows a converter based on MMC topology with n
submodules per branch. Therefore the converter will generate
n+1 voltage levels at the output, referred to the supply mid-
point. The average voltage on each cell capacitor is Vc=Vdc/n
and the voltage on each switching device is limited to one
capacitor voltage. A robust voltage balancing method for the
cell capacitors is required to ensure that the voltage stress on
each switching device is controlled over the entire converter
operating range.
L represents the branch inductors, where the inner
currents of each arm are symbolized by iu and il. Additionally,
inside every submodule, constituted of a half-bridge or a 2-
level (2L) cell which is the most common configuration: Vc is
the capacitor voltage, Vx is the switched voltage of each
submodule. The switching devices are IGBTs (I1 and I2) and
diodes (D1 and D2). Assuming that all passive components
are symmetrical, it is commonly demonstrated that the
general expression of internal currents iu and il, respectively
through the upper and lower arms, can be written by [4] as:
(1)
where idc and iac are respectively the direct and the alternative
current parts in each branch, with Idc the average value of idc
and Iac the amplitude of iac, θ the angular position during a
period of alternative current and φ is the phase angle between
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Figure 1 - Modular multilevel converter topology and a basic submodule
configuration.
arm voltage and current. Nevertheless, it should be
emphasized that the second harmonic current, circulating
between the upper and lower branches, is hereby neglected,
since its amplitude depends on control strategies of the MMC
and is usually negligible compared to fundamental currents.
B. Waveforms of branch currents
Contrarily to other more classic multilevel converters, the
amplitude of currents in upper and lower branches of a MMC
is not the same due to the presence of a DC component Idc/3.
To illustrate this phenomenon, Fig. 2 presents the ideal
waveform of the currents in upper branch iu and its output
mean voltage vu in both cases of a classic multilevel converter
with a neutral midpoint in DC bus, e.g. NPC and Flying
Capacitor (FC) and a MMC with a floating midpoint (Fig. 2).
Compared to the current waveform of the same amplitude in
the classic multilevel topology, where the positive and
negative sequences have the same length, the average value
of the internal current iu in the MMC is respectively positive
or negative. Here the angular delay ψ denotes this unbalance.
Consequently, this difference (Fig. 2b) will create a
difference of the power losses in all switching devices of each
submodule (SM in Fig. 1). Note that, in the present paper,
only the inverter operation has been studied, where the DC
component is positive, whereas for converter operation the
DC component is negative and identical method can be
applied.
C. Loss calculation method
Based on classic calculation methods of IGBT loss in
PWM inverters [8-9] applied to classic multilevel topologies
[10], respectively Pcond and Psw, and assuming that the
following parameters do not depend on the junction
temperature, the conduction and switching losses in an IGBT,
e.g. I1 (Fig. 1), can be calculated as:
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Figure 2 - Comparison of internal current waveforms in the MMC topology (a)
without DC current and (b) with DC current.
, · , · , ² (2)
· · · , · , · , (3)
where Vce,sat is the saturation voltage, Rd is the dynamic
resistance, e0, e1 and e2 are coefficients of switching energy of
IGBT and Diode, which are obtained from the device
datasheet, Fsw is the switching frequency in each SM and m is
the modulation index. The specific currents Icond,av and Icond.rms
denote the device average and square root currents over the
fundamental period for conduction. Isw,cst, Isw,av and Isw.rms are
respectively the IGBT constant, average and square root
currents for switching.
Finally, the loss calculation is based on the calculation of
specific currents and on the identification of semiconductor
parameters, as (2) and (3). An identical loss calculation can
also be applied to diodes.
III. CALCULATION OF SPECIFIC CURRENTS
A. Specific currents in a FC converter
To illustrate this calculation method, the author of [10] has
given the expressions of specific currents for a comparable
basic switching cell of a FC converter in Table I, and the
calculation formula are given in Table III. The specific
currents of a similar switching cell of an FC converter can be
calculated with respectively φ and π+φ angular moments for
the positive sequence in Fig. 2a. For simplification, the case of
Phase-Shift (PS) PWM has been used where the duty cycle α
is defined as:
·
(4)
Otherwise, in the case of other modulation methods, the
duty cycle must be determined. And note that in a switching
cell of a FC converter, the amplitude of the current is Iac, i.e.
the double of the alternative current in a SM of a MMC
converter.

TABLE I. EXPRESSIONS OF SPECIFIC CURRENTS IIN A COMPARABLE FC

CONVERTER [10]

Name Expressions for I1, I2 Exp

pressions for D1, D2

Icond,av 1 1
2 4 2 4
1 1
Icond,rms² ² ² Figure 4 – Switching states of each sem
miconductor in a 2L-SM [6].
8 3 8 3
1 1
Isw,cst C. Switching states of a 2-Level SMM
2 2
As can be observed in Fig.1, each half-bridge SM is
Isw,av
indeed a 2-Level (2L) SM, which iss composed of two IGBT
Isw,rms²
² ² (I1 and I2), two anti-parallel diodess (D1 and D2) and a DC
4 4 energy storage capacitor. Each 2L-SM toggles between two
sequences during a whole perio od of the AC current,
B. Determination of the angular delay ψ illustrated in Fig. 4, where in a SM only one type of
From this section, the same calculation m method is applied semiconductor is conducting at the time.
t For the same reason
to a SM of the MMC. As the current wavefform in the MMC as in the precedent calculation, considering a SM in the upper
is a bit different from that in classic convertters, illustrated by branch with the current Iu(θ) in (1) , the PS-PWM and the
Fig. 2, the angular delay ψ entailed byy the unbalanced angular moments presented in Fig. 2b, the angular moments
currents can be determined as the solution of (5) illustrated in and the duty cycle of each semiconductor are given in Table
Fig. 3. II.

TABLE II. F SWITCHING STATES

CHARACTERISTICS OF
0 (5)
Angular moments Duty cycle γ and
Sequence A and B conducting semiconductor
and expressed as: positive
I1 : γ=α D2 : γ=1-α
(6) Angular moments Duty cycle γ and
Sequence A and B conducting semiconductor
with the ratio of currents: negative A
2
I2 : γ=α D1 : γ=1-α
/
(6)
/
Consequently, by taking into acccount the characteristics of
switching states shown in Table II, I the formula for each
Finally the formula of specific ccurrents for all
specific current can be established for
f each semiconductor in
semiconductors in a half-bridge SM in Figg. 1 can be fully
Table III.
detailed for the MMC topology.
TABLE III. FORMULA OF INTEGRATIO
ON FOR SPECIFIC CURRENTS

Name Form
mula

1
Icond,av γ
2

1
Icond,rms² γ ²
2

1
Isw,cst 1
2

1
Isw,av
2

1
Figure 3 - Determination of the angular deelay ψ Isw,rms² ²
2

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 TABLE IV. INTEGRAL EXPRESSION OF ALL SPECIFIC CURRENTS FOR EACH CEMICONDUCTOR IN A 2L-SM OF MMC

Sequence positive I1 D2
/ /
cos 2 2 cos 2 2
Icond,av
2 cos 2 cos

/2 ² 9cos /2 ² 9cos
Icond,rms² cos3 cos 2 2 cos3 cos 2 2
2 cos 2 cos
² ²

/ ² / ²
Isw,cst cos
²
2 cos
²
2
/ /
Isw,av cos 2 cos 2

Isw,rms²

Sequence negative D1 I2
/ /
cos 2 2 cos 2 2
Icond,av
2 cos 2 cos

/2 ² 9cos /2 ² 9cos
Icond,rms² cos3 cos 2 2 cos3 cos 2 2
2 cos 2 cos
² ²
/ ² / ²
Isw,cst cos
²
2 cos
²
2
/ /
Isw,av cos 2 cos 2

Isw,rms²

D. Expressions of specific currents A. Thermal simulation

Finally all the expressions of specific currents in a 2L-SM In this section, the studied operation conditions for
are given in Table IV. Note that, compared to Table I, for each simulations are given in Table V.
semiconductor the associated specific currents are different. In
particular that is true for conductive currents, and for TABLE V. SIMULATION PARAMETERS
switching currents which are different following the nature of
sequence. Name Symbol Value
At this step, with the identification of semiconductor
Amplitude of AC current Iac 150 A
parameters, the total active loss, i.e. conducting and switching
loss within a 2L-SM can be determined by means of (2) and Amplitude of DC current Idc 150 A
(3). And because of the modular structure of MMC, the Ratio of currents k 1.5
calculation of loss on a single submodule is enough to Power factor Fp 0.8
estimate the whole active loss of a converter. Furthermore, in
this model, the active loss depend on the amplitude of AC and Phase angle φ 37°
DC currents for the MMC and some critical cases will be Switching frequency Fsw 1 kHz
emphasized in the next section with thermal simulations. Modulation index m 1

IV. THERMAL ANALYSIS As illustrated by Table IV, (2) and (3), the expressions of
This section provides the application of the loss calculation active loss are functions of the amplitude of AC and DC
(section III), for the comparison with a classic converter, such currents, the phase angle, the switching frequency and the
as the FC (section II-C). modulation index. Besides, from the manufacturer
INFINEON, the semiconductor parameters have been
identified in Table VI with the provided data sheet for a

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1.7kV and 300A power module FF300R17ME3 with IGBT3
and EmCon3 diodes.

TABLE VI. SEMICONDUCTOR PARAMETERS

Semiconductor Name Value

Vce,sat 0.92 V

Rd 4.9e-3 Ω
IGBT3
e0 16.2 J
I1, I2
e1 0.386e-3 J.A
-2
e2 0.608e-6 J.A

Vce,sat 0.95 V
Figure 5 - Thermal simulation in a 2L-SM in the MMC.
Rd 3.2e-3 Ω
EmCon3 Diode in the case of the classic topology for the given operation
D1, D2
e0 18.1 J
parameter in Table V. This is mainly due to the significant
e1 0.232e-3 J.A increase of the conducting and the switching loss in I1,
e2 -0.183e-6 J.A
-2 respectively about 50% and 20% more than that in the FC.
Consequently this will entail harsh conditions upon the
thermal management inside the power module used for the
First, at the given operation point defined in Table V, the
MMC, in presence of huge amount of direct current. As the
active loss are calculated for a 2L-SM in the MMC, and also
conducting loss does not depend on the switching frequency,
for an equivalent switching cell in the FC topology where the
even with a lower switching frequency this disparity still
amplitude of the alternative current is the double of that in the
remains and can cause undesirable effects.
MMC as in Table I. The results of calculation are given in
A thermal simulation inside a dual-switch power module,
Table VII.
commonly used as a 2L-SM for the inverter application, has
TABLE VII. ACTIVE LOSS been realized in Fig. 5 to illustrate the presence of a hot spot
inside the MMC system. For that, the ambient temperature
Topology Semi- Conducting Switching Total Tam=50°C and the heat transfer coefficient h=20kW/m2/K of
type conductor loss [W] loss [W] [W]
165.4 the cooling baseplate for the switching devices have been
I1 129.4 36 chosen to keep the hottest chip (I1) below 120°C. In Fig. 5 it
(46%)
I2 94.6 16.4
111 can be observed that the hot spot concentrates actually a big
(31%) part of the heat and presents the maximum of the junction
27.2
MMC D1 15.2 12 temperature. This thermal unbalance inside a power module
(7.6%)
54.4 will reduce the power rating of the switching devices. It can
D2 29.5 24.9 also cause thermo-mechanical unbalance for long term use or
(15%)
Total 268.7 (75%) 89.3 (25%)
358 for much higher power applications. Therefore, two solutions
(100%) are possible. The first is to use a more efficient cooling
119.2
I1 89.3 29.9
(35%)
system, with standard power modules, by considering the
119.2 highest loss in one type of semiconductors, or to use
I2 89.3 29.9
(35%) overrated standard power modules. And the second is to
FC D1 30.7 19.1
49.8 design specific power modules for the MMC system.
(15%)
49.8 B. Impact of the operation parameters
D2 30.7 19.1
(15%) Because of the presence of the DC current inside the
338 circulation of currents through submodules of the MMC, the
Total 240 (71%) 98 (29%)
(100%)
thermal distribution inside a basic switching cell is
completely different from the one in the classic topology. As
Based on the proposed calculation method, the different
illustrated by the integral expressions of the specific currents
types of loss can be fully determined and the disparity of the
in Table IV and that of active loss in (2) and (3), the power
thermal distribution in the submodule is also emphasized. In
loss depends on several parameters. Sometimes this can be
Table VII, compared to the FC converter, each semiconductor
critical for the good functioning of the whole system, thus it
of a submodule presents different loss in the MMC. In
is worth to investigate the impact of operating parameters
particular, in the case of a 2L-SM, only one type of semi-
over the thermal disparity, and also to foresee the thermal
conductor, i.e. IGBT I1 here, should dissipate less than the
behaviors in some singular conditions. Among the different
half (46%) of the total amount of the active loss, against 35%
parameters in Table V, it is easy to show that only the

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 Figure 6 - Impact of the variation of AC current in (a) conducting loss, (b)
switching loss, (c) total loss in each semiconductor and (d) total loss in a
2L-SM of the MMC.
Figure 8 - Impact of the variation of modulation index m in (a) conducting
loss, (b) switching loss, (c) total loss in each semiconductor and (d) total
loss in a 2L-SM of the MMC.
switching loss Psw increases linearly with the switching
frequency Fsw. Hence, the influence of amplitude of the AC
and DC currents Iac and Idc, of the modulation index m and of
the power factor Fp on the variation of loss will be studied.
Only one parameter is varied at time in the following
simulations.
Starting with the impact of the variation of the AC current
on active loss in Fig.6, it is noted that the total active loss of
the 2L-SM seems to be a linear function of the AC current
(Fig. 6d), whereas the variation of different loss in each
semiconductor is not the same (Fig. 6abc), in particular the
loss in IGBTs increase faster than these in diodes.
In Fig. 7 it is outlined that, when the ratio of currents k is
very high (Fig. 7d) i.e. Idc is negligible compared to Iac in the
branch currents defined by (1), the active loss tend to be the
same in the same type of semiconductors, which is the case in
the classic topology in Table VII. Whereas, when the ratio k
becomes low i.e. Idc becomes high (e.g. more than about
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Figure 7 – Impact of the variation of DC current in (a) conducting loss, (b)
switching loss, (c) total loss in each semiconductor and (d) total loss of a
2L-SM of the MMC.
Figure 9 - Impact of the variation of power factor Fp on (a) conducting loss,
(b) switching loss, (c) total loss in each semiconductor and (d) total loss in a
2L-SM of the MMC.
100A), the disparity of loss in each semiconductor is
important (Fig. 7ab).
In particular, the active loss in I1 increases considerably
with the increase of the DC current, until the active loss in the
other semiconductors, especially I2 and D1 come to be zero
(Fig. 7c), when Idc is more than 200A. Physically it
corresponds to the limit of this system, where the direct
current becomes too high to have the negative sequence.
Therefore it will help to define the relevance of operation
conditions in term of thermal considerations. And it can also
be showed that with lower direct current the active loss in
each switching device is lower than that in the classic
topology, e.g. the FC converter, this is because the amplitude
of the alternative current in the MMC converter is the half of
the one in the FC converter.
Afterwards, the impact of the variation of the modulation
index m and of the power factor Fp on the variation of active
loss has been illustrated respectively in Fig. 8 and 9. It is
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[5] Y. Zhang, G.P. Adam, T.C. Lim, Stephen J. Finney and B.W. Williams,
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establish a non-stationary modeling to give a more precise interruption, Doctoral Thesis, University of Grenoble, 10th May 2011
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However, for this modeling, the calculation of the power loss
is simple and can be easily deducted from Table III.
b) The semiconductor parameters depend actually on
the junction temperature of semiconductor. The influence of
this temperature can be implemented in a numerical loss
calculation.
c) Within Fig. 7, it is noted that the impact of the
variation of the DC current is drastic on the one of the active
loss. Still the relationship between the value of the DC current
and the output parameters need to be highlighted to have more
precise modeling of the MMC system.
d) In the first hypothesis, only the constant and
fundamental signals have been considered in the present
calculation method. However, the second harmonic is always
present in the branch currents, whatever the control strategies.
Therefore the effect of its amplitude can be also taken in
account.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank C. Rizet for his help on
the understanding of loss calculation, as well as L.
Malgouyres and M. Jamal Eddine for their contribution on
thermal studies and modeling.
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