Strategic Considerations for Unipolar SiC Switch Options: JFET vs. MOSFET

Design considerations for a self-powered gate driver for normally-ON SiC junction field-effect transistors

“…The SiC metaloxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), for instance, can be driven as easily as the Silicon counterparts. Nevertheless, the fabrication of SiC MOSFETs is far more complicated than the SiC junction field-effect transistors (JFETs) or the SiC bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) due to anticipated reliability issues of the gate-oxide layer at higher temperatures and the low mobility in the channel [2], [3]. On the other hand, the fabrication of SiC JFETs is less complicated than SiC MOSFETs, but driving these devices efficiently is not a trivial issue.…”

Design Steps Toward a 40-kVA SiC JFET Inverter With Natural-Convection Cooling and an Efficiency Exceeding 99.5%

“…Then, with the use of suitable gate drivers similar switching speeds could be reached for all transistors [28]- [32]. More specifically, both normally-off JFETs and BJTs require more driving power while MOSFETs suffer from oxide layer and transconductance problems [24], [33]. In spite of the normally-on characteristics, often  reasonable price and availability of the required number of devices in a short time.…”

“…Due to their early development stage, almost all of them suffer from various issues that must be solved in order to come up with reliable and robust SiC converters. The normally-on problem for (the best) SiC JFETs [22], the low current gains for SiC BJTs [23], and the stability of the oxide layer of the SiC MOSFET [24] count as such problems.…”

Comparison of a state of the art Si IGBT and next generation fast switching devices in a 4 kW boost converter

“…Although previous work clearly highlights the potentials of these two SiC switching devices, neither of them have fully become the new standard component in commercial products. Apart from the small availability through distribution channels, main issues are related to the (long-term) reliability, which is still ongoing research work [16]- [18].…”