Patent ID: 8593099

Claim:
An electric compressor comprising: a compression section for compressing a cooling medium sucked into a housing; a motor for driving the compression section; a motor driving circuit for driving the motor, the motor driving circuit including an inverter circuit having a plurality of power semiconductor elements as a plurality of heat generating parts, a control section of a microcomputer configuration and a power circuit part having a smoothing capacitor and a noise filter; a cooling medium suction chamber provided on the cooling medium inflow side in the housing; a driving circuit housing chamber for housing the motor driving circuit; a partition wall which is provided so as to partition the cooling medium suction chamber and the driving circuit housing chamber, and permits heat exchange between the cooling medium in the cooling medium suction chamber and the motor driving circuit in the driving circuit housing chamber; and a temperature sensor provided in the vicinity of the plurality of power semiconductor elements; wherein the power semiconductor elements are disposed on a wall surface of the driving circuit housing chamber inside and outside a range of the partition wall, so that the power semiconductor elements generate different levels of heat; the temperature sensor is provided in the vicinity of a power semiconductor element that generates the highest temperature; and the control section performs control of the number of revolutions of the motor on the basis of the highest temperatures detected by the temperature sensor.