High Switching Performance of 1700V, 50A SiC Power MOSFET over Si IGBT/BiMOSFET for Advanced Power Conversion Applications

Abstract

Due to wider band gap of Silicon Carbide (SiC) compared to Silicon (Si), MOSFET made in SiC has considerably lower drift region resistance, which is a significant resistive component in high-voltage power devices. With low on-state resistance and its inherently low switching loss, SiC MOSFETs can offer much improved efficiency and compact size for the converter compared to those using Si devices. In this paper, we report switching performance of a new 1700V, 50A SiC MOSFET designed and developed by Cree, Inc. Hard-switching losses of the SiC MOSFETs with different circuit parameters and operating conditions are measured and compared with the 1700V Si BiMOSFET and 1700 Si IGBTs, using same test setup. Based on switching and conduction losses, the operating boundary of output power and switching frequency of each device are found out in a DC-DC boost converter and compared. The switching / and / of SiC MOSFET are captured and discussed in perspective of converter design. To validate the continuous operation, three DC-DC boost converters using these devices, are designed and tested at 10kW of power with 1kV of output voltage and 10kHz of switching frequency. 1700V SiC Schottky diode is used as the blocking diode in each case. Corresponding converter efficiencies are evaluated and the junction temperature of each device is estimated. To demonstrate high switching frequency operation, the SiC MOSFET is switched upto 150kHz within permissible junction temperature rise. A switch combination of the 1700V SiC MOSFET and 1700V SiC Schottky diode connected in series is also evaluated for zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-ON behavior and compared with those of bipolar Si devices. Results show substantial power loss saving with the use of SiC MOSFET. Index Terms-1700V SiC MOSFET, 1700V Si IGBT, 1700V Si BiMOSFET, switching characterization, switching losses, converter efficiency, zero voltage switching (ZVS) turn-ON.

Applications, Prospects and Challenges of Silicon Carbide Junction Field Effect Transistor (SIC JFET)

“…In order to fully exploit the potentials of SiC devices, researcher have went as far as developing SiC MOSFET. Some of the examples of SiC MOSFET circuit application are reported in [69]- [73]. The future will see a lot of research in the fabrication of SiC MOSFET, such as studying the reliability and stability of the oxide layer over an extended period of time [1].…”

Low-Voltage PV Power Integration into Medium Voltage Grid Using High-Voltage SiC Devices

“…Figure 6 shows the cascaded H-bridge converter, where the H-bridges, each having a dc bus voltage of 5 kV, use 10 kV SiC Mosfets with antiparallel 10 kV JBS diode. SiC Mosfets and 1700 V SiC Schottky diodes (8) . A DC-DC converter, as shown in Figs.…”

“…6), 5 units of 10 kV SiC Mosfet (7) , and 10 kV JBS diodes (7) are paralleled to match up the current rating of the H-bridge. For 2.4 kV application, 1700 V/50A SiC Mosfet from (8) are considered along with the 1700 V SiC Schottky diodes (8) . For the multi-limb transformer of Fig.…”

“…The switching and conduction loss data of 10 kV SiC Mosfet and 10 kV JBS diode is obtained from (7) and (15) respectively, the loss data for 1200 V/100 A SiC Mosfet data is obtained from (10). The switching loss data for 1700 V SiC Mosfet and 1700 V SiC Schottky Diode is obtained from (8). The switching losses are estimated based on switching voltage of 620 V for 1200 V/100 A SiC mosfet device (10) , switching voltage of 5 kV for the 10 kV device (7) (15) based H-bridge (Fig.…”

“…The switching losses are estimated based on switching voltage of 620 V for 1200 V/100 A SiC mosfet device (10) , switching voltage of 5 kV for the 10 kV device (7) (15) based H-bridge (Fig. 6) and switching voltage of 1200 V for 1700 V device (8) based 3L-NPC converter. for A MATLAB/PLECS model of the proposed configurations of Figs.…”