Silicon carbide power MOSFETs (also referred to as SiC MOSFETs) are semiconductor devices with enhanced performance over their silicon counterparts, offering higher blocking voltage, lower on state resistance, and reduced switching losses.
Toshiba’s CoolSiC power devices feature high withstand voltage and low on-resistance.
High Temperature Operation
Silicon carbide power MOSFETs can withstand higher operating temperatures than the silicon-based devices they replace, enabling them to handle higher voltage transients without damage or breakdown, providing power systems with additional protection from voltage transients.
Silicon Carbide power mosfets offer lower on-resistance than their silicon counterparts due to factors like wider bandgap and higher electron mobility, leading to faster switching speeds with decreased losses during MOSFET operation.
These properties become particularly important when used for high-performance applications like servo motor control. Accurate servo motors must switch at very high frequencies in order to meet precision standards.
SiC devices boast increased voltage and current ratings, as well as superior resistance to thermal runaway. This makes them suitable for use in warmer ambient condition spaces where controlling the heat generated during switching is challenging; efficient cooling solutions such as well-designed heat sinks or thermal interface materials may help manage this issue, thus decreasing overall system costs.
Low Switching Losses
RoN resistance increases with temperature and can be decreased to reduce switching losses for high-speed applications. SiC devices offer much quicker switching rates compared to silicon counterparts, further helping to decrease switching losses and minimize switching losses.
CoolSiC MOSFETs feature resonant snubbers to reduce tail current loss during switching operations, thus eliminating energy dissipation through the snubber and providing faster switching operations with reduced overall power losses in devices.
A power MOSFET’s gate terminal controls electron flow between its source and drain. Applying positive voltage to its gate terminal creates an electric field, drawing electrons towards it to form a conductive path between source and drain. However, no voltage applied will turn this field off, blocking current flow completely and leaving the device in its “off” state.
Toshiba has developed a trench-gate power MOSFET that boasts industry-leading Ron, sp and RoN*Qgd values thanks to a novel device structure, while simultaneously improving Ron, sp and RoN*Qgd figures while keeping an Rspread of 2.41. By strategically placing their Schottky barrier diode within its wide p-type diffusion region they were also able to reduce feedback capacitance as well as SBD current for stable operation.
High Breakdown Voltage
Silicon carbide is an innovative power semiconductor material that’s revolutionizing the industry. Able to withstand much higher voltages – up to 10x that of standard silicon electronics – silicon carbide’s wide bandgap allows electronic components to be smaller, run faster, and function in higher temperature environments without compromising reliability.
Silicon carbide power MOSFETs rely on their gate for their operation. Applying positive voltage to this component causes an electric field that attracts electrons and forms an insulating channel between source and drain terminals; this enables users to switch on or off their device.
Due to its superior critical breakdown strength, silicon carbide power mosfets can handle significantly higher voltages than their silicon counterparts and therefore can be utilized in hard switching topologies like LLC and ZVS with reduced switching losses and greater efficiency.
Cree unveiled their inaugural silicon carbide power MOSFET in January 2011: this device featured 1200 V and 80mO on resistance in a TO-247 package, providing superior performance that allowed many new electronic circuit designs to utilize it. A compact circuit simulator model was then created in order to accurately simulate its performance against that of an ordinary silicon MOSFET (either 2kV, 5A diMOSFET) versus its superior 2H-SiC counterpart (and compare results against each).
High Current Density
Silicon carbide power mosfets can produce high current densities due to their increased critical breakdown field, greater thermal conductivity, and wider bandgap. When combined, this allows a smaller device without compromising resistance levels, voltage ratings or switching losses.
Additionally, their high temperature tolerance enables these devices to be utilized in hard and soft switching topologies, leading to smaller component sizes and reduced parasitic capacitance resulting in more energy-efficient circuit designs.
One of the primary advantages of these devices is their ability to switch faster than their silicon-based counterparts, allowing for higher switching frequencies and further reducing switching losses by using smaller inductive and capacitive components that reduce switching losses.
Due to their ability to achieve high breakdown electric field strengths, these devices can also be utilized without fear of destructive failure in applications with high blocking voltages – an enormous advantage over silicon-based devices which often require high gate drive voltages in order to maintain their breakdown threshold thresholds.
These characteristics have led to the development of CoolSiC MOSFET automotive power modules, which can be found in various electric vehicles including high-voltage traction inverters that convert DC from battery power into AC for motor use and on-board battery chargers and auxiliary inverters used with specific fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
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