Electric vehicles (EVs) use two power systems: a high-voltage battery pack, typically 400 to 800 VDC, for traction, and a low-voltage system, usually 12 V or 48 V, for the vehicle’s electrical accessories. Traditionally, the low-voltage battery was charged by an alternator, but in modern vehicles it gets power from the high-voltage battery pack. However, in some EV architectures, the low-voltage battery must also be able to help recharge the high-voltage battery pack to provide energy for starting the vehicle. This means that the on-board DC-DC converter must be bi-directional and very efficient as well as highly reliable in order to run the complex control algorithms needed to ensure an energy-efficient solution.
Our products and solutions
ST has a wide offer of discrete semiconductors including AEC-Q101 qualified IGBTs and both silicon and silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFETs and diodes, AEC-Q100 qualified galvanically isolated IGBT and MOSFET gate drivers and SPC5 32-bit automotive microcontrollers to enable scalable, cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions for implementing these challenging converters.