2017 Innovation Award and Young Engineer Award

Semikron Innovation Award 2017 goes to team of engineers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for their new power electronic circuit for increased solar power output, while the 2017 Young Engineer Award goes to two deserving winners in recognition of their work on the development of a new digital IC for PC power supply systems, as well as a new design tool for automotive power systems.

This year’s Semikron Innovation Award went to a team of three engineers: Mario Gommeringer and Alexander Schmitt from KIT Karlsruhe, and Johannes Kolb from Schaeffler Technologies, SHARE at KIT, Karlsruhe. The award-winning team has developed a new innovative power electronic circuit that will help maximize power output in solar power generators. The circuit known as the HILEM circuit or “High Efficiency Low Effort MPP Tracking Circuit” was developed as part of a cooperation project between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Schaeffler Hub for Advanced Research (SHARE) and can be connected between any number of photovoltaic strings and a common inverter. The circuit maximizes the energy yield of solar generators by enabling individual maximum power point (MPP) tracking for each cell string. 

This year’s Young Engineer Award has gone to two young researchers. The first award winner Pierrick Ausseresse from Infineon Technologies was selected for his work on the development of a new digital IC for use in PC power supplies. This innovation is very much in line with the trend towards developing firmware for a digital CPU based controller specifically for switch mode power supplies (SMPS). At the heart of this innovation is a digital LLC control featuring a low-cost controller that meets the tight dynamic load step requirements. The digital approach also allows for the integration of flexible protection features that make the power supply system more robust than with analog systems. What’s more, this approach eliminates the need for auxiliary power supply for standby operation.

The other joint winner of the Young Engineer Award is Marco Schilling from Ilmenau Technical University. Mr Schilling’s award-winning development Opti-PAC is a versatile tool for optimum active and passive component selection in automotive power systems such as electric drivetrains or DC/DC converters. 

Photo: (f.l.t.r) Prof. Leo Lorenz (ECPE), Johannes Kolb (Schaeffler Technologies), Mario Gommeringer (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Alexander Schmitt (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Pierrick Ausseresse (Infineon Technologies), Marco Schilling (Ilmenau Technical University), Bettina Martin (SEMIKRON-Stiftung)

About SEMIKRON

SEMIKRON is one of the world's leading manufacturers of power modules and systems primarily in the medium output range (approx. 2 kW up to 10 MW). Our products are at the heart of modern energy efficient motor drives and industrial automation systems. Further application areas include power supplies, renewable energies (wind and solar power) and electric vehicles (private cars, vans, buses, lorries, forklift trucks, and more). SEMIKRON's innovative power electronic products enable our customers to develop smaller, more energy efficient power electronic systems. These systems in turn reduce the global energy demand.