RESEARCH
250°C SiC high density power module development
Year: 2011
Fig. 1. Fabricated power module.
A survey of the literature reveals still inadequate information on the gate drive circuit design and the thermal design of the normally-on SiC JFET for fast switching and high density power module development, especially when considering the shoot-through issue. Therefore, this paper presents a detailed layout design, a gate drive circuit design, and a thermal design for a high density, high temperature SiC phase-leg power module. The phase-leg power module following the layout design was fabricated, as shown in Fig.1. This prototype power module was operated with 700 V input voltage, 11 A output current and 40 kHz frequency at the estimated junction temperature of 250°C. The switching waveforms are shown in Fig.2. With the help of an advanced gate drive chip and circuit, fast switching was obtained. The promising results demonstrate the high power density and thus validate the design methods.
Fig. 2. Electrical evaluation.
