High switching performance of 1.7kV, 50A SiC power MOSFET over Si IGBT for advanced power conversion applications

Silicon Carbide (SiC) has wider band gap compared to Silicon (Si) and hence MOSFET made in SiC has considerably lower drift region resistance, which is a significant resistive component in high-voltage power devices. Due to low on-state resistance combined with its inherently low switching loss, SiC MOSFET is an excellent candidate for high power converter design. With its lower power loss and operation capability at higher switching frequency, power converters based on SiC MOSFETs can offer much improved efficiency and compact size compared to those using Si IGBTs. In this paper, we report switching performance of a new 1.7kV, 50A SiC MOSFET; designed and developed by Cree, Inc. Hard-switching losses of the SiC MOSFETs with different circuit parameters and operating conditions are measured and compared with the 1.7kV, 50A Si IGBTs, using the same test setup. Switching performance of the 1.7kV SiC MOSFET and 1.7kV SiC Schottky diode connected in series are also evaluated under a zero current switching (ZCS) condition and important findings are reported.