Novel AC-Coupled Gate Driver for Ultrafast Switching of Normally Off SiC JFETs

Wrzecionko, Benjamin; Bortis, Dominik; Biela, J.; Kolar, Johann W.

doi:10.1109/tpel.2011.2182209

Cited by 62 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, for normallyoff SiC JFETs, the gate is not insulated from the channel by an oxide as MOSFETs, but forms a pn-junction with drain and source terminals, it is therefore required to inject hundreds of milliamps gate-source current during the onstate. On the other hand, during the switching transient, the gate drive should sink or source several amperes peak gate current to achieve fast switching [107]. To meet the different requirements for turn-on and turn-off switching transients on one hand and the steady on-state on the other hand, a gate driver with multiple driving stages should be designed [108].…”

Section: B Gate Drivementioning

confidence: 99%

Overview of Silicon Carbide Technology: Device, Converter, System, and Application

Wang¹,

Zhang²

2016

CPSS TPEA

156

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: B Gate Drivementioning

confidence: 99%

Overview of Silicon Carbide Technology: Device, Converter, System, and Application

Wang¹,

Zhang²

2016

CPSS TPEA

156

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This problem can be solved both at the driver level [23] and at the system level [36], but it adds complexity and may reduce the reliability if not treated with meticulous care. The SiC BJT and the normally-OFF VJFET, on the other hand, are normally-OFF devices, but both of them need a significant continuous base/gate current in the ON-state [37], [27]. The power consumption of these drivers is considerably higher than those for the MOSFET or the normally-ON JFET.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Experimental Evaluation of SiC Switches in Soft-Switching Converters

Ranstad

Nee

Linner

et al. 2014

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-Soft-switching converters equipped with insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) in silicon (Si) have to be dimensioned with respect to additional losses due to the dynamic conduction losses originating from the conductivity modulation lag. Replacing the IGBTs with emerging silicon carbide (SiC) transistors could reduce not only the dynamic conduction losses but also other loss components of the IGBTs. In the present paper, therefore, several types of SiC transistors are compared to a state-of-the art 1200 V Si IGBT. First, the conduction losses with sinusoidal current at a fixed amplitude (150 A) are investigated at different frequencies up to 200 kHz. It was found that the SiC transistors showed no signs of dynamic conduction losses in the studied frequency range. Second, the SiC transistors were compared to the Si IGBT in a realistic soft-switching converter test system. Using a calorimetric approach, it was found that all SiC transistors showed loss reductions of more than 50%. In some cases loss reductions of 65 % were achieved even if the chip area of the SiC transistor was only 11% of that of the Si IGBT. It was concluded that by increasing the chip area to a third of the Si IGBT, the SiC vertical trench junction field effect transistor could yield a loss reduction of approximately 90 %. The reverse conduction capability of the channel of unipolar devices is also identified to be an important property for loss reductions. A majority of the new SiC devices are challenging from a gate/base driver point-of-view. This aspect must also be taken into consideration when making new designs of soft-switching converters using new SiC transistors.

show abstract

“…For power switching applications, the enhancement mode (E-mode) devices feature a narrow gate voltage swing, which requires highly accurate control to prevent spikes (7,8) . For safety reasons, depletion mode (D-mode) devices require a negative drive voltage, which is difficult to provide with commonly available gate drivers (9,10) . To avoid the deficiencies of the above approaches, this study combines a high voltage (HV) D-mode GaN HEMT device with a low voltage (LV) Si-based MOSFET device in cascode configuration (11)(12)(13) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

GaN-HEMTs Cascode Switch: Fabrication and Demonstration on Power Conditioning Applications

Cheng

Chou²

2015

The Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Industrial Application Engineering 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A novel metal TO-257 4-pin package is proposed for the packaging of a D-mode GaN MIS-HEMTs cascoded with an integrated power MOSFET and a Schottky diode device, and demonstrated in power conversion applications. The normally-off hybrid cascode circuit provides a maximum drain current of 14.6 A and a blocking capability of 600 V. The cascode configuration has a +3.9 V gate threshold, sufficient voltage swing, good controllability of commonly available gate drivers. Analysis of 48 V/ 2 A power conversion characteristics are discussed and show the excellent switching performance in inductive load circuits. Switching characteristics of the integral SiC SBD are also demonstrated. Finally, a 48-to-96 V boost converter is used to evaluate the benefit of GaN cascode switches. Experimental results show an output power of 94.8 W and a power efficiency of 95.37 % under a switching frequency of 100 kHz, which is higher than the 92.03% power efficiency provided by the conventional Si MOSFET with the same switching operation.

show abstract

Novel AC-Coupled Gate Driver for Ultrafast Switching of Normally Off SiC JFETs

Cited by 62 publications

References 11 publications

Overview of Silicon Carbide Technology: Device, Converter, System, and Application

Overview of Silicon Carbide Technology: Device, Converter, System, and Application

An Experimental Evaluation of SiC Switches in Soft-Switching Converters

GaN-HEMTs Cascode Switch: Fabrication and Demonstration on Power Conditioning Applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About