Short Circuit Ruggedness of New Generation 1.2 kV SiC MOSFETs

Abstract

New generations of silicon carbide (SiC) based MOSFETs are commercially available from manufacturers featuring smaller chip size with higher power density demonstrating performance improvement compared to their previous generation counterparts. As the size of the chip is small, the volume available to dissipate energy during short-circuit (SC) like conditions is reduced, leading to increased self-heating of the device. Therefore, the short circuit withstand time (SCWT) is reduced. As a reliability aspect, ruggedness to extreme operating conditions like SC needs to be analyzed for these devices, to improve the design or to design better detection and protection circuits for these MOSFETs when used in specific SC vulnerable applications. In this work, the new third generation 1.2 kV SiC MOSFET from Wolfspeed in a TO-247-4 pin package having a smaller chip size is measured for SC ruggedness. The causes for device failure under different DC-link voltages, gate bias voltages, SC pulse durations and self-heating behavior are analyzed based on the destructive SC tests performed. The device is measured to have an SCWT of 2 μs at a DC-link voltage of 800 V compared to SCWT of 4.5 μsfor the second generation 1.2 kV devices with larger chip size and TO-247-3 pin package. The presence of the Kelvin source contact demonstrates higher peak SC currents compared to the same devices without Kelvin source.