Development of a SiC JFET-Based Six-Pack Power Module for a Fully Integrated Inverter

Abstract

In this paper, a fully integrated silicon carbide (SiC)-based six-pack power module is designed and developed. With 1200-V, 100-A module rating, each switching element is composed of four paralleled SiC junction gate field-effect transistors (JFETs) with two antiparallel SiC Schottky barrier diodes. The stability of the module assembly processes is confirmed with 1000 cycles of −40 °C to +200 °C thermal shock tests with 1.3 °C/s temperature change. The static characteristics of the module are evaluated and the results show 55 mΩ on-state resistance of the phase leg at 200 °C junction temperature. For switching performances, the experiments demonstrate that while utilizing a 650-V voltage and 60-A current, the module switching loss decreases as the junction temperature increases up to 150 °C. The test setup over a large temperature range is also described. Meanwhile, the shoot-through influenced by the SiC JFET internal capacitance as well as package parasitic inductances are discussed. Additionally, a liquid cooled three-phase inverter with 22.9 cm × 22.4 cm × 7.1 cm volume and 3.53-kg weight, based on this power module, is designed and developed for electric vehicle and hybrid electric vehicle applications. A conversion efficiency of 98.5% is achieved at 10 kHz switching frequency at 5 kW output power. The inverter is evaluated with coolant temperature up to 95 °C successfully.