Parasitic Turn-On of SiC MOSFETs – Turning a Bug into a Feature

Conference: PCIM Europe digital days 2020 - International Exhibition and Conference for Power Electronics, Intelligent Motion, Renewable Energy and Energy Management
07/07/2020 - 07/08/2020 at Deutschland

Proceedings: PCIM Europe digital days 2020

Pages: 7Language: englishTyp: PDF

Authors:
Hofstetter, Patrick; Maier, Robert W.; Bakran, Mark-M. (University of Bayreuth, Center of Energy Technology (ZET), Germany)

Abstract:
This paper shows, that the usually unwanted parasitic turn-on (PTO) in SiC MOSFETs does not always need to be of a disadvantage. It is shown that a small PTO can even be used to lower the maximum overvoltage at the body diode during the diode turn-off. In applications where this is the limiting condition for the switching speed, this means that the SiC MOSFET turn-on can be accelerated leading to significantly lower losses.