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Junction temperature is an important design/operation parameter, as well as, a significant indicator of device's health condition for power electronics converters. Compared to its silicon (Si) counterparts, it is more critical for silicon carbide (SiC) devices due to the reliability concern introduced by the immaturity of new material and packaging. This paper proposes a practical implementation using an intelligent gate drive for online junction temperature monitoring of SiC devices based on turn-off delay time as the thermo-sensitive electrical parameter. First, the sensitivity of turn-off delay time on the junction temperature for fast switching SiC devices is analyzed. A gate impedance regulation assist circuit is proposed to enhance the sensitivity by a factor of 60 and approach 736 ps/°C tested in the case study with little penalty on the power conversion performance. Next, an online monitoring unit based on gate assist circuits is developed to monitor the turn-off delay time in real time with the resolution less than 104 ps. As a result, the micro-controller is capable of “reading” junction temperature during the converter operation. Finally, a SiC-based half-bridge inverter is constructed with an intelligent gate drive consisting of the gate impedance regulation circuit and online turn-off delay time monitoring unit. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide bandgap semiconductors are gradually being adopted in high power-density high efficiency applications, providing faster switching and lower loss, and at the same time imposing new challenges in control and hardware design. In this paper, a gallium nitride-based Vienna-type rectifier with SiC diodes is proposed to serve as the power factor correction stage in a high-density battery charger system targeting for aircraft applications with 800 Hz ac system and 600 V level dc link, where power quality is required according to DO160E standard. To meet the current harmonic requirement, PWM voltage distortion during the turn-off transient, is studied as the main harmonics contributor. The distortion mechanism caused by different junction capacitances of the switching devices is presented. A mitigation scheme considering the nonlinear voltage-dependent characteristics of these capacitances is proposed and then simplified from a pulse-based turn-off compensation method to a general modulation scheme. Simulation and experimental results with a 450 kHz Vienna-type rectifier demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach, showing a THD reduction from 10% to 3% with a relatively low-speed controller. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dead time significantly affects the reliability, power quality, and efficiency of voltage-source converters. For silicon carbide (SiC) devices, considering the high sensitivity of turn-off time to the operating conditions (> 5× difference between light load and full load) and characteristics of inductive loads (> 2× difference between motor load and inductor), as well as large additional energy loss induced by the freewheeling diode conduction during the superfluous dead time (∼15% of the switching loss), then the traditional fixed dead time setting becomes inappropriate. This paper introduces an approach to adaptively regulate the dead time considering the current operating condition and load characteristics via synthesizing online monitored turn-off switching parameters in the microcontroller with an embedded preset optimization model. Based on a buck converter built with 1200-V SiC MOSFETs, the experimental results show that the proposed method is able to ensure reliability and reduce power loss by 12% at full load and 18.2% at light load (8% of the full load in this case study). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive short-circuit ruggedness evaluation and numerical investigation of up-to-date commercial silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs. The short-circuit capability of three types of commercial 1200-V SiC MOSFETs is tested under various conditions, with case temperatures from 25 to 200 °C and dc bus voltages from 400 to 750 V. It is found that the commercial SiC MOSFETs can withstand short-circuit current for only several microseconds with a dc bus voltage of 750 V and case temperature of 200 °C. The experimental short-circuit behaviors are compared, and analyzed through numerical thermal dynamic simulation. Specifically, an electrothermal model is built to estimate the device internal temperature distribution, considering the temperature-dependent thermal properties of SiC material. Based on the temperature information, a leakage current model is derived to calculate the main leakage current components (i.e., thermal, diffusion, and avalanche generation currents). Numerical results show that the short-circuit failure mechanisms of SiC MOSFETs can be thermal generation current induced thermal runaway or high-temperature-related gate oxide damage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a board-level integrated silicon carbide (SiC) mosfet power module for high temperature and high power density application. Specifically, a silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based gate driver capable of operating at 200 °C ambient temperature is designed and fabricated. The sourcing and sinking current capability of the gate driver are tested under various ambient temperatures. Also, a 1200 V/100 A SiC mosfet phase-leg power module is developed utilizing high temperature packaging technologies. The static characteristics, switching performance, and short-circuit behavior of the fabricated power module are fully evaluated at different temperatures. Moreover, a buck converter prototype composed of the SOI gate driver and SiC power module is built for high temperature continuous operation. The converter is operated at different switching frequencies up to 100 kHz, with its junction temperature monitored by a thermosensitive electrical parameter and compared with thermal simulation results. The experimental results from the continuous operation demonstrate the high temperature capability of the power module at a junction temperature greater than 225 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]