Analysis and Design of a 1200 V All-SiC Planar Interconnection Power Module for Next Generation More Electrical Aircraft Power Electronic Building Blocks

Abstract

Abstract-Compact, light weight and efficient Power ElectronicBuilding Blocks are seen as fundamental components of future More Electric Power Systems, e.g. More Electrical Aircraft. Core elements supporting the trend are power modules employing solely SiC MOSFETs. In order to take advantage of the high switching speed enabled by SiC, novel modules concepts must be investigated. For example, low inductance planar interconnection technologies, integrated buffer capacitors and damping networks are possible solutions to mitigate switching overvoltages and oscillations at the switching node occurring for conventional modules. In this paper, the analysis and the design of a novel ultra-low inductance 1200 V SiC power module featuring an integrated buffer-damping network are discussed. The power module is first described and characterized with impedance measurements. Afterwards, a general optimization procedure for the sizing and the selection of the integrated components is presented and measurements are performed to verify the analysis and to highlight the improvements of the proposed solution.

On-State Voltage Measurement of Fast Switching Power Semiconductors

“…The gate of T p is connected to a voltage source V p and when T p is in on-state, i.e. V p > v 1,a + V th,Tp , the measured voltage (1) V th,Tp and R Tp are the threshold voltage and the on-state resistance of T p , respectively. Typically R Tp R 1 , therefore v 1,a ≈ v ds .…”

“…Additionally, a low-inductance package and a short connection from the OVMC to the DUT are preferred in order to limit the voltage oscillations of v 1 inevitably excited from the switching transitions. According to these criteria, in the considered setups, a 800 V N-channel Si MOSFET [26] is selected for T p as in [10] and a 600 V SiC Schottky diode [27] for D 1 .…”

“…switching overvoltages and voltage oscillations occurring in hard-switching [1] and/or switching voltage and current time displacement relative to zero-voltage switching (ZVS) [2]. However, with the increasing switching speed enabled by wide bandgap devices and/or with employing ZVS concepts, the loss contribution of the semiconductors is more and more dominated by the conduction losses.…”

New Figure-of-Merit Combining Semiconductor and Multi-Level Converter Properties

“…11a it becomes clear that the efficiency difference between the X-FOM-predicted efficiency and the real efficiency can be reduced by simply adding a Kelvin connection [42]. As semiconductor technology has improved (and especially with the faster switching speed provided by WBG devices [49,50]), better device packages with reduced parasitics that increase switching performance and reduce overvoltages [44,45,51] have become available (e.g., devices with planar bond wires [52] or direct PCB connection [53,54] for SiC devices and surface-mounted devices for GaN HEMTs [55]). With the integration of the gate driver circuitry, as shown in Fig.…”

SPICE Modeling of SiC MOSFET Considering Interface-Trap Influence

“…SiC can provide satisfactory performance under high switching frequency applications [3]- [6], thus enabling the use of smaller filter components within the converter circuits. This points to the ability of power devices based on SiC to potentially optimize the power density of next generation power converters [7]. Furthermore, SiC power devices can also sustain high operating tempera-tures, thus making them attractive candidates for applications in aircraft, automotive, and energy exploration industries, etc [8], [9].…”