Analysis of Parasitic Elements of SiC Power Modules With Special Emphasis on Reliability Issues

Commercially available silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET power modules often have a design based on existing packages previously used for silicon insulated-gate bipolar transistors. However, these packages are not optimized to take advantage of the SiC benefits, such as high switching speeds and high-temperature operation. The package of a half-bridge SiC MOSFET module has been modeled and the parasitic elements have been extracted. The model is validated through experiments. An analysis of the impact of these parasitic elements on the gate-source voltage on the chip has been performed for both low switching speeds and high switching speeds. These results reveal potential reliability issues for the gate oxide if higher switching speeds are targeted.