An Analysis of the Switching Performance and Robustness of Power MOSFETs Body Diodes: A Technology Evaluation
- 11 July 2014
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
- Vol. 30 (5), 2383-2394
- https://doi.org/10.1109/tpel.2014.2338792
Abstract
The tradeoff between the switching energy and electro-thermal robustness is explored for 1.2-kV SiC MOSFET, silicon power MOSFET, and 900-V CoolMOS body diodes at different temperatures. The maximum forward current for dynamic avalanche breakdown is decreased with increasing supply voltage and temperature for all technologies. The CoolMOS exhibited the largest latch-up current followed by the SiC MOSFET and silicon power MOSFET; however, when expressed as current density, the SiC MOSFET comes first followed by the CoolMOS and silicon power MOSFET. For the CoolMOS, the alternating p and n pillars of the superjunctions in the drift region suppress BJT latch-up during reverse recovery by minimizing lateral currents and providing low-resistance paths for carriers. Hence, the temperature dependence of the latch-up current for CoolMOS was the lowest. The switching energy of the CoolMOS body diode is the largest because of its superjunction architecture which means the drift region have higher doping, hence more reverse charge. In spite of having a higher thermal resistance, the SiC MOSFET has approximately the same latch-up current while exhibiting the lowest switching energy because of the least reverse charge. The silicon power MOSFET exhibits intermediate performance on switching energy with lowest dynamic latching current.Keywords
Funding Information
- Science City Research Alliance
- UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
- Underpinning Power Electronics Devices Theme (EP/L007010/1)
- Components Theme (EP/K034804/1)
This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit:
- Improved Performance of 4H-SiC PiN Diodes Using a Novel Combined High Temperature Oxidation and Annealing ProcessIEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, 2014
- An Evaluation of Silicon Carbide Unipolar Technologies for Electric Vehicle Drive-TrainsIEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 2014
- Transitioning to Physics-of-Failure as a Reliability Driver in Power ElectronicsIEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 2013
- The Impact of Parasitic Inductance on the Performance of Silicon–Carbide Schottky Barrier DiodesIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2012
- Reliability Issues of SiC MOSFETs: A Technology for High-Temperature EnvironmentsIEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 2010
- Active-Clamp Snubbers for Isolated Half-Bridge DC–DC ConvertersIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2005
- A Self-Driven Soft-Switching Voltage Regulator for Future MicroprocessorsIEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2005
- A family of high power density bus convertersPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2004
- Optimization of the body-diode of power MOSFETs for high efficiency synchronous rectificationPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2002
- On the reliability of DC-DC power convertersPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2002