RC Snubber Design Procedure for Enhanced Oscillation Damping in Wide-Bandgap Switching Cells

This paper introduces an effortless design procedure for resistive-capacitive (RC) snubbers, aiming to damp the oscillations caused by wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor devices in power electronic switching cells. Not only do overvoltages stress the semiconductor devices, the oscillations may also raise electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) issues. Although RC snubbers are popular as damping elements, most existing design strategies are very complex. In this paper, a simple analytical design approach is derived. The resulting closed-form expressions for the snubber parameters ensure maximum damping and enable a well-founded design in very little time. To validate the approach, double-pulse measurements are conducted on a printed circuit board (PCB) with an RC-snubbered WBG switching cell. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical findings.