Improvement of the I2t capability for xEV active short circuit protection by combination of RC-IGBT and Leadframe technologies

This paper describes the investigation results of I
²
t capability for IGBT module used for xEV powertrain application. I
²
t experiments and simulation evaluations are done by RC-IGBT or the conventional FWD with bondwires structure. As a result, RC-IGBT(wire) has 80% higher I
²
t capability compared with FWD in the case of comparable diode active area. In addition, RC-IGBT(leadframe) and RC-IGBT(bondwires) are also evaluated by experimental and simulational approaches. As a result, RC-IGBT(leadframe) has additional 33% increase in I
²
t compared to RC-IGBT(wire). Over all, I
²
t of RC-IGBT (leadframe) is 2.4 times higher than that of FWD (bondwires).