The first demonstration of symmetric blocking SiC gate turn-off (GTO) thyristor

Sung, Woongje; Huang, Alex Q.; Baliga, B. Jayant; Ji, In−Hwan; Ke, Haotao; Hopkins, Douglas C.

doi:10.1109/ispsd.2015.7123438

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Northrop Grumman started the development of SiC GTOs in 1997 [11][12][13]. And then Cree, NCSU, and US Army Research Lab (ARL) made further efforts to increase the blocking voltages of SiC GTO since 2001 [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In 2015, the SiC GTO's blocking capability was increased to a record high voltage of 22 kV [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation on 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor with direct carrier extraction access to drift region for power conversion applications

Liang

Wang

Fang

et al. 2020

Semicond. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

4H-SiC gate turn-off (GTO) thyristor offers extraordinary advantages over its counterparts in handling ultra-high voltage electric power conversion applications because of its relatively low forward voltage drop at high conduction current density. Besides, though the SiC thyristors never suffer from long carrier liftime induced large switching loss like Si thyristors, the peak temperature rise rather than dynamic avalanche breakdown is blamed for the safe operation area (SOA) failure, making further reduction of power loss in SiC GTOs even more important. In this paper, a 20 kV SiC GTO with direct carrier extraction access to its drift region (DA-GTO) is investigated to explore the benefit this structure could bring for SiC thyristors, namely achieving smaller switching loss and/or potential larger SOA with slight sacrifice in forward voltage drop at high current. The structure is formed by interleaved P + ion implantation into part of the thin N-injector layer based on conventional 20 kV SiC GTO. The SiC DA-GTO operates in BJT mode at low current, and in GTO mode with low forward voltage drop at high current. During turn-off process, it offers a direct current path to quickly sweep out the excess carriers in the P-drift region, thus speeds up the turn-off process and decreases the turn-off loss. Simulation results show that its turn-off loss reduces by 37.4%, contributing to 12.6% reduction in total power loss, compared with SiC GTO. Therefore, SiC DA-GTO is a very promising choice for next-generation power conversion systems.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation on 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor with direct carrier extraction access to drift region for power conversion applications

Liang

Wang

Fang

et al. 2020

Semicond. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In particular, high voltage gate turn-off (GTO) thyristor based on SiC has rapidly developed in simulations and experiments for being used as the ultra-high voltage direct current (UHVDC) converters. The SiC GTO thyristors can withstand higher blocking voltage, operate at higher junction temperature and have faster switching speed than Si thyristor, [1,2] because SiC material has characteristics of wide bandgap, high breakdown electric field, high thermal conductivity, and radiation-resistance. [3,4] Currently, the asymmetrical 22-kV 4H-SiC GTO thyristor with a thickness of 160-µm p − drift layer is reported by Cree, Inc. [5] In fact, the development of SiC GTO thyristor with n-type drift layer is ahead of that of SiC GTO thyristor with p-type drift layer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultra-high voltage 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor for low switching time*

Liu¹,

Pu²,

Wang

2019

Chinese Phys. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An ultra-high voltage 4H-silicon carbide (SiC) gate turn-off (GTO) thyristor for low switching time is proposed and analyzed by numerical simulation. It features a double epitaxial p-base in which an extra electrical field is induced to enhance the transportation of the electrons in the thin p-base and reduce recombination. As a result, the turn-on characteristics are improved. What is more, to obtain a low turn-off loss, an alternating p+/n+ region formed in the backside acts as the anode in the GTO thyristor. Consequently, another path formed by the reverse-biased n+–p junction accelerates the fast removal of excess electrons during turn-off. This work demonstrates that the turn-on time and turn-off time of the new structure are reduced to 37 ns and 783.1 ns, respectively, under a bus voltage of 8000 V and load current of 100 A/cm2.

show abstract

“…In 2014, AIST introduced 16kV/20A SiC injection enhancement IGBT, with a specific RON of 14 mΩ•cm 2 (7) . In 2015, 4kV-8.5kV symmetric SiC GTO devices were developed by North Carolina State University (8) .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Progress in SiC and GaN Power Devices

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wide bandgap SiC and GaN power devices are attractive for next-generation power electronic systems with increased efficiency and power density. In this paper, we review recent progress in SiC and GaN power devices, including the following.(1) Interface optimization techniques for SiC MOSFETs (e.g. NO/N2O annealing, P incorporation, metal interfacial-layer, high-k dielectric deposition, etc.) will be discussed. (2) Longterm reliability of SiC MOSFETs with special focus on timedependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) will be presented. (3) We will introduce our latest progress in the development of superjunction SiC devices, which can break the fundamental limit of the conventional unipolar devices. (4) In GaN-based lateral power devices, the 2DEG channel is an inherent normally-on channel. To achieve fail-safe operation and simpler gate drive circuit, normally-off device techniques will be introduced and compared.

show abstract

The first demonstration of symmetric blocking SiC gate turn-off (GTO) thyristor

Cited by 10 publications

References 9 publications

Investigation on 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor with direct carrier extraction access to drift region for power conversion applications

Investigation on 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor with direct carrier extraction access to drift region for power conversion applications

Ultra-high voltage 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristor for low switching time*

Recent Progress in SiC and GaN Power Devices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About