Silicon Carbide (SiC) N-channel Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (n-IGBTs) rated higher than 10kV can improve Medium Voltage and High Voltage power electronics due to the favourable combination of SiC material with the n-IGBT device structure. This paper investigates the phenomenon of unintentional turn-on occurring due to high dV/dt produced during switching transients and analyses the impact of design parameters such as the channel length, the p-well doping and the oxide thickness for their ability to suppress it.

This paper presents a comprehensive shortcircuit robustness investigation of 4H-Silicon Carbide (SiC) ntype Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (nIGBTs) for Medium-Voltage and High-Voltage applications. Numerical electrothermal TCAD simulations evaluate the IGBT shortcircuit behaviour under various conditions and device parameters variation. The internal device current density and temperature distribution show that the parasitic thyristor latchup and the thermally-assisted leakage current generation can be the failure mechanism of SiC nIGBT when the device temperature in the p-well/n-emitter interface region is about 1500K.