Investigation of Two High-Temperature Bipolar Phenomena and Characteristics of 1.2-kV SiC Power Diodes for High-Temperature Applications

SiC power semiconductor devices exhibit the potential to operate at high temperatures; however, research regarding their high-temperature characteristics is currently insufficient. By using a high-temperature experimental platform, the temperature-dependent characteristics of SiC power diodes in an ultra-wide temperature range of 25–425 °C are studied in this article. Two high-temperature bipolar phenomena of SiC power diodes are discovered and thoroughly studied, that is, the reverse recovery “high temperature dramatic increase (HTDI)” of SiC MOSFET body diode (MBD) and the “high temperature bipolar transition (HTBT)” of SiC Schottky barrier diode (SBD). Furthermore, for high-temperature applications, the high-temperature characteristics of the package form of SiC MBD and SiC SBD in parallel (SiC MNSP) are characterized and analyzed in this article, and its advantages are proven from the perspective of switching energy loss. The experimental results indicate that the maximum improvement effect on the peak reverse recovery current (
$I_{\text {rr}}$
) is approximately one-third, and that the switching energy loss (
$E_{\text {sw}}$
) can be reduced by nearly half at most. This article provides guidance for future high-temperature applications and packaging forms of SiC-based modules.