Characterization and Performance Evaluation of the State-of-the-Art 3.3 kV 30 A Full-SiC MOSFETs

Abstract

With their intrinsic superiorities such as high breakdown electric field and high thermal conductivity, the silicon carbide (SiC) mosfet s are replacing traditional Si insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBTs) in power electronics applications. However, at higher voltages, SiC mosfet s are at early stages of development and are not commercialized yet. This paper presents thorough static and dynamic performance characterization of 3.3 kV and 30 A discrete full-SiC mosfet s. The devices under test are noncommercialized samples from Sumitomo Electric Industries, Japan. A complete static characterization is performed on the devices under test from 25 up to 150 °C to reveal their characteristics and their dependency on temperature. Also, for dynamic tests, a double-pulse tester with a high-performance gate driver circuit is designed, and tests are performed at 25, 100, and 150 °C. Key characteristics such as on -resistance and switching losses are compared to those of a Si IGBT with similar voltage and current rating in order to assess advantages of SiC mosfet s over existing Si semiconductors. Following static and dynamic characterizations, the performance of the devices is evaluated in a boost converter topology, and the results are compared to that of Si IGBTs. The evaluation results reveal significant superiority for SiC mosfet s in terms of efficiency, maximum possible switching frequency, and system power density.