Issues in power diode modelling for circuit simulation

There has been a proliferation of technical papers on power device modelling for circuit simulation. Even the power diode, the simplest of all power devices, has been the subject of a fair amount of research interest in the modelling of its characteristics. The issues in the modelling of the power diode for circuit simulation are discussed in this paper, based on the authors' experiences. Among the issues discussed are the modelling techniques, accuracy, validation, implementation, simulation performance and parameter extraction. It is concluded that until the availability of a simple, reliable and well-understood model with standardized parameter estimation procedure, and which is actively supported by commercial simulators, the impact of this modelling work on the computer aided design of power electronics circuits is expected to remain minimal.