High Temperature Stability and the Performance Degradation of SiC MOSFETs

SiC MOSFET devices have great potentials in future high temperature power electronics applications due to their possible higher thermal runaway temperature compared with other SiC power semiconductor devices. In this paper, the high temperature stability of SiC MOSFETs is investigated by experiments and Saber simulations. The maximum steady-state junction temperature of the SiC MOSFET is measured to exceed 250 °C and saber simulations based on experimental model estimate that the thermal runaway temperatures are close to 300 °C. In addition, performance degradation of SiC MOSFETs during high-temperature operation is observed and discussed. Experimental results show that the degradation happens during both the high temperature storage (maximum 5% RON increment) and high temperature operation process (maximum 15% RON increment). The degradations are found to recover to a close-to-initial level after 1 h recovery time at the room temperature.