VHDL-AMS modeling and library building for Power Electrical Engineering

Since VHDL-AMS standard has been set up (IEEE 1076.1, March 1999), this hardware description language has been used many times for modeling active power devices, such as "Smart Power" devices (diodes, power MOSFETs, IGBTs, ...). Libraries of Power Electrical Engineering Models can be built with these models, but "passive" devices models are often missing although they are much more important and complex than in micro-electronics. This paper presents the opportunity that VHDL-AMS may offer by adding complementary modeling advantages in active devices (self-heating in power MOSFETs, for instance), in passive power components and by suggesting a possible strategy for building a library of reusable models for power electrical engineering.