Development of a Pulsed Power Supply Utilizing 13 kV Class SiC-MOSFETs

Abstract

To resolve the drawback of conventional thyratron switches, development of a semiconductor high voltage switch utilizing a 13 kV class SiC-MOSFET developed by Tsukuba Power Electronics Constellations (TPEC) is proceeding. At first, the device evaluation test was carried out with a resistive load circuit. With the conditions of drain voltage of 10 kV and load resistance of 1 kΩ, turn on loss Eon, turn off loss Eoff, rise time Tr and fall time Tf were 1.7 mJ, 1.1 mJ, 64 ns, and 75 ns, respectively. Thereafter, the 2s-12p switch array was designed and assembled, where 12 MOSFETs are equally aligned on a circle shaped circuit board and two circuit boards are stacked in series. An 18 kV-318 A-1 us pulse with a rise time of 289 ns in the short pulse switching test were successfully demonstrated. Moreover, switching tests of 2nd generation MOSFET that has a twice larger device area was conducted. As a result, 60 % reduction of on-resistance was confirmed.