Design and realization of a power board for ultrafast diodes reverse recovery behavior characterization in LLC-like applications

Innovation and improvement of electronic devices have been throughout the years a massive boost for electronic sciences, no matter what kind, and power electronics is not an exception. Industry and research still aim at creating devices able to tackle old and new challenges with increasing performance, allowing designers to obtain better and better results in terms, just to give some examples, of power density, speed and efficiency. One of the final parts of the production process consists in testing prototyped devices and measuring their characteristics, allowing to asses if quality and performance standards have been met and competitiveness on the market is likely to be achieved, as well as to collect data which will be reported on datasheets. This thesis work tackles the design and the realization of a system capable of monitoring ultrafast diodes reverse recovery behavior when they're switched off at low current slope, condition which is likely to be verified when multi-resonant LLC converters, whose diffusion on the market is constantly growing, are considered, allowing to asses performance parameters of a wide selection of devices in significant conditions which are different from the ones they experience in classical hard-switched converters. First, an in-depth study of diode switching characteristics has been necessary, in order to understand the phenomenon to be observed and thus being capable of making correct choices during the design phase, passing than to a quick overview of available materials and of existing machinery the board to be realized will be inserted into. After that a high level view of the adopted solution is proposed and working phases the system goes through are observed, followed by the in-depth description of each circuit block which has been realized to implement previously descripted functions, among which for example a compact tunable step-up converter stands out. Finally, the printed circuit board has been designed, mounted and tested, allowing to verify its correct behavior alongside other subsystems of the measuring apparatus, effectiveness of provided safety measurements and, last but not least, to observe the behavior of a sample device in application significant conditions.