Title :
High-temperature switching and evaluation of 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristors and diodes under inductive loads
Author :
Bayne, Stephen B. ; Tipton, C. Wesley ; Scozzle, C.J. ; Griffin, Timothy E.
Author_Institution :
US Army Res. Lab., Adelphi, MD, USA
Abstract :
Future U.S Army electric motor control applications will require power semiconductor devices that operate for thousands of hours at case temperatures of 150°C and higher. For reliable operation of silicon (Si)-based power electronics, the case temperature must be below 120°C. Because of this temperature limitation of Si, new wide bandgap materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC) are being investigated. We report on a SiC gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) and SiC p-i-n diode operating at case temperatures up to 150°C. For high power and high voltage applications the GTO is the switch of choice. In this study, currents up to 2 A where switched by the GTO under pulsed and continuous switching into an inductive load. The turn-on and turn-off gains, the on-state voltage, and the turn-on and turn-off times, as a function of temperature will be discussed.
Keywords :
invertors; machine control; p-i-n diodes; power semiconductor diodes; silicon compounds; switching convertors; thyristors; wide band gap semiconductors; GTO; SiC; U.S Army electric motor control application; continuous switching; gate turn-off thyristor; inductive load; inverters; p-i-n diode; power electronics; power semiconductor devices; pulsed switching; silicon carbide; temperature limitation; turn-off gain; turn-on gain; wide bandgap material; Electric motors; P-i-n diodes; Power electronics; Power semiconductor devices; Power semiconductor switches; Semiconductor diodes; Silicon carbide; Temperature control; Thyristors; Voltage;
Conference_Titel :
Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 2002. IECEC '02. 2002 37th Intersociety
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7296-4
DOI :
10.1109/IECEC.2002.1392030