Comparative Evaluation of 15-kV SiC MOSFET and 15-kV SiC IGBT for Medium-Voltage Converter Under the Same <italic>dv/dt</italic> Conditions

Abstract

The 15-kV silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET and 15-kV SiC IGBT are the two state-of-the-art high-voltage SiC devices. These high-voltage SiC devices enable simple two-level converters for a medium-voltage (MV) voltage source converter (VSC) topology compared with the complex three-level neutral point clamped and other multilevel topologies, which, otherwise, is required to realize for MV VSC with silicon devices. This paper characterizes the 15-kV SiC MOSFET module at 10- and 12-kV dc bus for two different configurations of the device under test. This paper also presents endurance test (continuous switching-mode experimental demonstration) of 15-kV SiC MOSFET for 10-kV output voltage for both a bidirectional and unidirectional dc-dc boost converter. Furthermore, this paper presents: 1) the switching loss comparison of 15-kV SiC MOSFET with 15-kV SiC IGBT for the same dv/dt condition; 2) the switching frequency limits of 15-kV SiC MOSFET for a dc-dc boost converter with a phase leg configuration at 10-kV output voltage; and 3) comparative evaluation of 15-kV SiC MOSFET and 15-kV SiC IGBT in a unidirectional dc-dc boost converter for 10 V output voltage.