Degradation characteristics of SiC power devices for DC circuit breaker by repetitive unclamped inductive switching test

Abstract

This paper investigates the degradation of SiC power devices for DC circuit breaker through repetitive unclamped inductive switching (UIS) tests. The ON resistance of SiC power devices such as MOSFET and JFET are lower compared with Si devices. Therefore, SiC power devices are suitable for use as DC circuit breakers. Several papers have discussed degradation of SiC power devices; however, few studies have determined a suitable power device for a DC breaker from a degradation standpoint. In this paper, four types of SiC devices were subjected to repetitive UIS tests. Our research demonstrated SiC-JFET to be suitable for a DC breaker.