Medium voltage power switch based on 1.7 kV SiC MOSFETs connected in series inside power modules

This paper presents various issues related to a medium voltage power switch designed with series-connected transistors of the 1700 V/300 A SiC MOSFET power module. The focus of the paper are the voltage imbalance compensation methods: passive snubber circuits and active gate driving. Both methods are simulated in Saber software with the use of detailed models of the transistors and diodes of the module. At first, elements of the DRC snubber were determined and simulated during the double pulse procedure. Then, new active gate driver is proposed and verified via series of simulations. Finally, the test setup was designed with two series connected SiC MOSFETs inside CAS300M17BM2 power modules and experimental tests were performed at 1.5 kV DC to compare two compensation methods.