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Analysis of Parasitic Capacitor's Impact on Voltage Sharing of Series-Connected SiC MOSFETs and Body-Diodes

Year: 2020 | Author: Xiang Lin | Paper: P1.1
Difference in voltage sharing due to parasitic capacitance
Fig.1. Voltage sharing of series connected 10 kV SiC MOSFETS with different external gate parasitic capacitor
   To further push the device-operating voltage for applications beyond 10 kV, a series connection of 10 kV SiC MOSFETs is a cost-effective solution. However, a severe voltage sharing issue exists among series-connected devices under higher switching speed conditions because of the difference in the parasitic capacitors and gate signals of different devices. Parasitic components, particularly the parasitic capacitors, surrounding the devices and gate-drivers introduce different voltage imbalance of series-connected SiC MOSFETs under different conditions. The impact of parasitic capacitors requires a detailed investigation. The understanding of such impacts will help design engineers select the proper devices, gate-drivers, and packaging solutions to enable sufficient voltage-safety margins when operating the series-connected devices under high-speed switching operations.
   In this work, the impact of parasitic capacitor is analyzed. Drain/source to heatsink/baseplate parasitic capacitors and heatsink to dc-bus parasitic capacitors will introduce extra drain-source parasitic capacitors across devices, and the value of parasitic capacitor difference changes under different heatsink connection schemes and locations. The devices connected directly to the dc-bus terminals have the larger parasitic drain-source capacitor caused by the heatsink/baseplate. The gate parasitic capacitor will result in an extra gate current during the transient, and the current difference is not affected under different heatsink connections or locations. The top device (M1 and M3 in Fig. 1) in the series-connected devices always has an extra discharge current through the gate parasitic capacitor.
   The voltage sharing of series-connected 10 kV SiC MOSFETs under different conditions is shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. Under low load-current conditions, all load current charges the Coss of MOS- FETs. The voltage difference is affected mostly by drain-source parasitic capacitors. Gate parasitic capacitors have a limited impact under low load-current conditions. Under high load-current conditions, the parasitic capacitors affect the gate Miller plateau voltage level.
A larger drain-source capacitor results in a lower Miller plateau voltage, which helps equalize the dv/dt of the two devices. The gate parasitic capacitors always result in a lower Miller plateau voltage for the top device in series-connection and consequently results in a higher dv/dt for the top device.
Graph of voltage sharing
Fig. 2. Voltage sharing of series-connected 10 kV SiC MOSFETS with different heatsink connection scheme

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