Silicon Carbide MOSFETS in Drives Applications – A Comparative Study

Abstract:
Throughout recent years, wide bandgap materials like silicon carbide (SiC) have entered the power semiconductor market, competing with classical IGBTs in a similar voltage regime. Along with SiC body diodes that significantly reduce the recovery losses in hard-switching designs, this opens the path to increased efficiency in energy conversion compared to IGBTs. Despite these advantages, SiC MOSFETs have not entered all applications. In energy-efficiency driven applications, SiC devices have been widely adopted. However, due to the higher price compared to IGBTs, they have not yet entered the drives market substantially. The work presented focuses on how using SiC MOSFETs in different topologies in a drives application can be done most efficiently, leveraging the full potential of the technology in a most economical way.