Open AccessConduction Performance Evaluation of Silicon and SiC Power Semiconductors for Solid-State DC Breakers
Author(s) -
Andreas Giannakis,
Dimosthenis Peftitsis
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
ieee access
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 127
ISSN - 2169-3536
DOI - 10.1109/access.2022.3203848
Subject(s) - aerospace , bioengineering , communication, networking and broadcast technologies , components, circuits, devices and systems , computing and processing , engineered materials, dielectrics and plasmas , engineering profession , fields, waves and electromagnetics , general topics for engineers , geoscience , nuclear engineering , photonics and electrooptics , power, energy and industry applications , robotics and control systems , signal processing and analysis , transportation
The main obstacle for the further development and commercialization of solid-state DC circuit breakers is the high ON-state power losses caused by the active power semiconductor devices. This paper presents an experimental evaluation of the electrical ON-state performance among several commercial high-power semiconductor device technologies rated at $1200V$ and $1700V$ at elevated temperatures. In addition, the potential of reducing ON-state losses by applying the maximum gate voltage, namely overdriving, has been assessed. It is shown that under nominal gate voltages, the normally-ON silicon carbide junction-field-effect transistor exhibits the lowest ON-state losses for both voltage classes, as well as at both temperatures. By using the overdriving concept, the ON-state voltage of silicon insulated-gate bipolar transistors has been minimized up to 10%. In addition to that, both the silicon carbide metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors and normally-ON junction-field-effect transistors experience voltage reduction up to 16% and 33% respectively when overdriving, at elevated junction temperatures.