Switching performance of 4H-SiC power devices

Physical models of material properties for 4H-SiC TCAD have been presented and used to discuss modelling of a selection of power semiconductor devices. Such TCAD techniques have been utilised to quantify the expected switching speed performance of SiC MESFETs. Below 1000 V, we find that a 4H-SiC power MESFET has no performance advantage (at room temperature) over an equivalent Si device. However, between 1000 V and 5000 V (the maximum considered in this study) a 4H-SiC MESFET has greatly superior switching properties to an equivalently rated Si device (at 5000 V, t_r(Si)/t_r(SiC)=1.5 and t_r(Si)/t_r(SiC)≈12).