Abstract
Purpose Power modules including the insulated gate bipolar transistor IGBT are widely used in the applications of motor drivers. The thermal behavior of these modules makes it important to choose the optimum design of cooling system. The purpose of this paper is to propose an RC thermal model of the dynamic electrothermal behavior of IGBT pulse width modulation inverter modules. Designmethodologyapproach The electrothermal model has been implemented and simulated with a MATLAB simulator and takes into account the thermal influence between the different module chips based on the technique of superposition. Findings This study has led to a correction of the junction temperature values estimated from the transient thermal impedance of each component operating alone. Originalityvalue In this paper, an experimental technique of a thermal influence evaluation is presented.