Short Circuit Ruggedness of 600 V SiC Trench JFETs

Abstract:

Silicon Carbide JFETs with low on-state resistance are suitable for a number of high power applications. The static, dynamic and short circuit characterization of 600 V SiC Trench JFETs are reported in this paper. Typical JFETs fabricated with a 1.2 μm cell pitch had an on-resistance value around 40 mΩ and blocking voltages of ~600 V across the wafer. JFETs were successfully switched with a dc link voltage of 300 V, a current of 15 A and operating temperature of 125 °C. These JFETs were subjected to a short circuit condition with duration ranging from 10 μs to 45 μs at a dc link voltage of ~300 V, and operating temperatures of 25 °C and 125 °C. The device could withstand subsequent short circuit successfully without any failure at both 25 °C and 125 °C. The short circuit current showed consistent dependency on the applied gate voltage, when it was varied from 0 V to 15 V.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1004)
• Pages: 933-938
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.1004.933
• Online since: July 2020
• Authors: Vinoth Sundaramoorthy*, Lukas Kranz, Stephan Wirths, Marco Bellini, Gianpaolo Romano, Yulieth Arango, Enea Bianda, Lars Knoll, Andrei Mihaila
• Keywords: Dynamic Switching, Ruggedness, Short Circuit Capability, Trench JFETs

References

[1] T. Funaky et al., Switching characteristics of SiC JFET and Schottky diode in high-temperature dc-dc power converter,, IEICE Electronics Express, vol.2, No 3, pp.97-102, (2005).

DOI: 10.1587/elex.2.97

[2] L. Cheng et al., Cryogenic and high temperature performance of 4H-SiC vertical junction field effect transistor (VJFETs) for space applications,, ISPSD 2005, USA.

DOI: 10.1109/ispsd.2005.1487993

[3] A. Mihaila et al., High temperature Characterization of 4H-SiC Normally-on vertical JFETs with buried gate and buried field rings,, ISPSD 2006, Italy.

DOI: 10.1109/ispsd.2006.1666096

[4] Y. Tanaka et al., 1200V, 35 A SiC-BGSIT with improved blocking gain of 480,, ISPSD 2010, Japan.

[5] B. N. Pushpakaran et al., High temperature unclamped inductive switching mode evaluation of SiC JFET,, IEEE Electron Device Letter, vol. 34, no. 4, pp.526-528, (2013).

DOI: 10.1109/led.2013.2247020

[6] P. Friedrich et al., Behaviour of high voltage SiC VJFETs under avalanche conditions,, Proceedings 21st IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference Exposition, March 2006, pp.1677-1683.

DOI: 10.1109/apec.2006.1620767

[7] W. Bergner et al, 650 V SiC JFET for high efficiency applications, Mat. Sci. Forum Vols. 778-780, 871 (2014).

DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/msf.778-780.871