Straightforward Measurement Method of Common Source Inductance for Fast Switching Semiconductor Devices Mounted on Board

Abstract

Recent progress of widebandgap semiconductor switching devices enabled extremely high-frequency operation of power converters owing to their ultrafast switching capability. Fast switching may cause large switching noise at the common source inductance, which may increase the switching loss and lead to false triggering. Therefore, measurement of the common source inductance is often intensely required in practical design of fast switching power converters. However, measurement of the common source inductance is difficult, because 1) the wiring path hidden beneath the molded package significantly contributes to this inductance, 2) the mutual inductance between the gating circuit and the power circuit also contributes to this inductance, and 3) this inductance cannot be defined as the stray inductance of a loop wiring path. These difficulties are addressed in this paper by proposing a novel measurement method of the common source inductance. The proposed method is applicable to already-mounted power circuits. In addition, the proposed method offers a straightforward measurement procedure with common instruments, such as a signal generator, an oscilloscope, and voltage and current probes. Along with the measurement principle, this paper also presents an experiment to evaluate the proposed method.