SiC power devices and applications in quasi-z-source converters/inverters

Abstract

The wide band-gap Silicon Carbide (SiC) material made power semiconductor devices have attracted increasing attentions in modern power electronics applications. They are able to not only provide wonderful performance of higher switching frequency, higher power, higher voltages, and higher junction temperature than silicon power devices, but also introduce significant decrease in the system volume and weight, and provide high reliability and high efficiency to power electronic systems. In this paper, a review of SiC devices in terms of characteristics, development, and applications are presented. And the SiC power device based quasi-Z-Source matrix converter and inverter are compared with the Silicon-IGBT based ones, respectively, demonstrating a competitive solution for the future development of such converters/inverters.