Investigation into Relationship of the Switching Performance and Short-Circuit Withstand Time on 1.2 kV 4H-SiC Power MOSFETs

The reduction of on-resistance of SiC devices contributes to the reduction in conduction losses and increased ampacity along with switching speed benefit of the wide band gap nature of the material. However, on-resistance improvement results in a tradeoff relationship with short-circuit withstand time, switching energy losses due to various factors, including parasitic capacitances. In this paper, we report the results of our investigation into the relationship between on-resistance, breakdown voltage, parasitic capacitance, short-circuit withstand time, and switching energy loss by varying device design and process parameters. Finally, these results show that it is possible to achieve better overall trade by adjusting both design and process parameters for an optimized SiC MOSFET.