Behavioral comparison of Si and SiC power MOSFETs for high-frequency applications

As SiC MOSFETs have become more popular today, it is important to understand how the new devices are different from the conventional Si MOSFETs, and whether they can directly replace their Si counterparts in converters. This paper answers these questions through comprehensive comparisons of the two technologies in the device static characteristics, switching performances, temperature behaviors, and loss distributions in a high-frequency DC-DC converter. The paper shows that the SiC MOSFETs do exhibit different behaviors than Si in many ways, explains how they are co-related with the device characteristics, and proposes the design considerations when using these new devices in high-frequency converters.