Assessment of 10 kV, 100 A Silicon Carbide mosfet Power Modules

This paper presents a thorough characterization of 10 kV SiC MOSFET power modules, equipped with third-generation mosfet chips and without external free-wheeling diodes, using the inherent SiC MOSFET body-diode instead. The static performance (e.g., I
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-V
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, I
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-V
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, C-V characteristics, leakage current, body-diode characteristics) is addressed by measurements at various temperatures. Moreover, the power module is tested in a simple chopper circuit with inductive load to assess the dynamic characteristics up to 7 kV and 120 A. The SiC mosfet power module exhibits an on-state resistance of 40 mΩ at room-temperature and leakage current in the range of 100 nA, approximately one order of magnitude lower than that of a 6.5 kV Si-IGBT. The power module shows fast switching characteristics with the turn-on (turn-on loss) and turn-off (turn-off loss) times of 130 ns (89 mJ) and 145 ns (33 mJ), respectively, at 6.0 kV supply voltage and 100 A current. Furthermore, a peak short-circuit current of 900 A and a short-circuit survivability time of 3.5 μs were observed. The extracted characterization results could serve as input for power electronic converter design and may support topology evaluation with realistic system performance predictability, using SiC mosfet power modules in the energy transmission and distribution networks.