Impact of ringing on switching losses of wide band-gap devices in a phase-leg configuration

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of ringing on the switching losses of wide band-gap (WBG) devices in a phase-leg configuration. An analytical switching loss model considering the parasitic inductance, stray resistance, devices' junction capacitances, and reverse recovery characteristics of the freewheeling diode is derived to identify the switching energy dissipation induced by damping ringing. This part of energy is found to be at most the reverse recovery energy and the energy stored in the parasitics, which is a small portion of the total switching energy. But the parasitic ringing causes interference between two devices in a phase-leg (i.e., cross talk). It is observed that during the turn-on transient of one device, the resonance among parasitics results in high overshoot voltage on the complementary device in a phase-leg. It worsens the cross talk, leading to large shoot-through current and excessive switching losses. The analysis results have been verified by double pulse test with a 1200 V SiC MOSFETs based phase-leg power module.