Analysis and design of a 1200 V All-SiC planar interconnection power module for next generation more electrical aircraft power electronic building blocks

Compact, light weight and efficient Power Electronic Building Blocks are seen as fundamental components of future More Electric Power Systems, e.g. More Electrical Aircraft. Core elements supporting the trend are power modules employing solely SiC MOSFETs. In order to take advantage of the high switching speed enabled by SiC, novel modules concepts must be investigated. For example, low inductance planar interconnection technologies, integrated buffer capacitors and damping networks are possible solutions to mitigate switching overvoltages and oscillations at the switching node occurring for conventional modules. In this paper, the analysis and the design of a novel ultra-low inductance 1200 V SiC power module featuring an integrated buffer-damping network are discussed. The power module is first described and characterized with impedance measurements. Afterwards, a general optimization procedure for the sizing and the selection of the integrated components is presented and measurements are performed to verify the analysis and to highlight the improvements of the proposed solution.