This paper evaluates the capability of SiC power semiconductor devices, in particular JFET and Schottky barrier diodes (SBD) for application in high-temperature power electronics. SiC JFETs and SBDs were packaged in high temperature packages to measure the dc characteristics of these SiC devices at ambient temperatures ranging from 25 C (room temperature) up to 450 C. The results show that both devices can operate at 450 C, which is impossible for conventional Si devices, at the expense of significant derating. The current capability of the SiC SBD does not change with temperature, but as expected the JFET current decreases with rising temperatures. A 100V, 25W dc-dc converter is used as an example of a high-temperature power-electronics circuit because of circuit simplicity. The converter is designed and built in accordance with the static characteristics of the SiC devices measured under extremely high ambient temperatures, and then tested up to an ambient temperature of 400 C. The conduction loss of the SiC JFET increases slightly with increasing temperatures, as predicted from its dc characteristics, but its switching characteristics hardly change. Thus, SiC devices are well suited for operation in harsh temperature environments like aerospace and automotive applications. Index Terms-dc-dc converter circuit, device characterization, high temperature operation, packaging, silicon carbide (SiC) device. I. INTRODUCTION S ILICON CARBIDE (SiC) has several superior characteristics over silicon (Si) when used as a semiconductor material [1]-[6]. In particular, SiC semiconductor devices are expected

Abstract-We introduce an accurate and robust technique for accessing causality of network transfer functions given in the form of bandlimited discrete frequency responses. These transfer functions are commonly used to represent the electrical response of high speed digital interconnects used on chip and in electronic package assemblies. In some cases small errors in the model development lead to non-causal behavior that does not accurately represent the electrical response and may lead to a lack of convergence in simulations that utilize these models. The approach is based on Hilbert transform relations or KramersKrönig dispersion relations and a construction of causal Fourier continuations using a regularized singular value decomposition (SVD) method. Given a transfer function, non-periodic in general, this procedure constructs highly accurate Fourier series approximations on the given frequency interval by allowing the function to be periodic in an extended domain. The causality dispersion relations are enforced spectrally and exactly. This eliminates the necessity of approximating the transfer function behavior at infinity and explicit computation of the Hilbert transform. We perform the error analysis of the method and take into account a possible presence of a noise or approximation errors in data. The developed error estimates can be used in verifying causality of the given data. The performance of the method is tested on several analytic and simulated examples that demonstrate an excellent accuracy and reliability of the proposed technique in agreement with the obtained error estimates. The method is capable of detecting very small localized causality violations with amplitudes close to the machine precision.

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