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This paper presents a novel compact circuit combining function of gate control and voltage balancing for series-connected silicon carbide (SiC) metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). Two series-connected SiC MOSFETs with the proposed circuit only require a single standard gate driver to achieve the gate control and voltage balancing during both steady-state and switching transition. Moreover, the proposed circuit is only composed of ten passive components. Therefore, the proposed circuit provides a low-cost and highly reliable method to increase the blocking voltage of the SiC MOSFET. The operation principles of the proposed circuit are theoretically analyzed. In addition, the high-blocking-voltage device is not only required in switching-mode power supply (SMPS) but also in dc-breaker applications. The proposed circuit is then modified to make it suitable to the dc-breaker applications. The simulation and experimental results validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed circuit in both SMPS and dc-breaker applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]