Silicon and SiC Hybrid Switch Performance in the Advanced Neutral Point Clamp (ANPC) Topology based Power Module

Inhalt:
Silicon Carbide MOSFETs are gradually becoming the technology of choice for solar inverters, chargers and motion control applications for their very low switching losses compared to the silicon IGBTs. On the other hand IGBT shows superior performance at higher power in terms of conduction losses. The combination of both the technology facilitates a hybrid switch which enhances higher power operation of the power module at a relatively high switching frequency. Paralleling silicon IGBT with the Silicon Carbide MOSFET also reduces the cost per watt. In this study the electrical performance of this parallel switch had been measured and simulated in an ANPC split output topology based power module. The results show that the efficiency of the hybrid combination of the silicon IGBT+SiC MOSFET is quite similar to the SiC MOSFET module up to a switching frequency of 50 kHz.