New power electronics components concept for automated manufacturing

This paper introduces a new concept for surface mount technology (SMT) automated manufacturing of power converters — PCB Power Sandwich. The Power Sandwich manufacturing method employs new x-dimension (x-dim) components, having the same height (x) and double sided SMT electrical terminations. The components are stacked between planar substrates and soldered on both, top and bottom sides using the multilayer Power Sandwich assembly process. By arranging the components in different stack layers an increase in power density, better heat removal and improved EMI performance of power converters can be achieved. New x-dim components enable fully SMT automated power converters manufacturing with short production time and low assembly cost.