Power Electronics Hardware Design for Manufacturability: Employing design principles to ensure manufacturability of complex designs at high-voltage and high-current extremes

With a small, diverse team of engineers, Magna-Power Electronics can offer over 160,000 different configurations of programmable power supplies and electronic loads, spanning current levels up to 10,000 Adc, voltage levels up to 10,000 Vdc, and power levels up to 3,000 kW. This feat is made possible through tightly integrated engineering and manufacturing teams, minimizing labor and maximizing automation, and imposing consistency as a core principle across all designs. This article shares several strategies within the power electronics design process that the company has iterated on during its 40-year history, including printed circuit board (PCB) design and vendor selection, prototype and design controls, and electro-mechanical integration. While Magna-Power has nearly fully in-sourced manufacturing operations under one roof, the strategies presented can also be implemented through close vendor relationships and understanding of the constraints from various production processes and machinery.