Robustness of SiC MOSFETs in short-circuit mode

Cheng Chen (1, 2) , Denis Labrousse (1) , Stéphane Lefebvre (1) , Mickaël Petit (1) , Cyril Buttay (2) , Hervé Morel (2)

1 SATIE - Systèmes et Applications des Technologies de l'Information et de l'Energie
2 EE - Ampère, Département Energie Electrique

This paper presents experimental robustness tests of Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFET submitted to current limitation or short-circuit operations. MOSFETs from different manufacturers have been tested and show different failure modes. A gate leakage current is detected before failure but is not necessarily responsible for the failure. For some tested devices, the failure appears in an open state mode after physical short-circuit between gate and source. The main failure mode is nevertheless a physical short-circuit between drain and source. However, the various tests show, despite the gate leakage current, excellent robustness of the various tested SiC MOSFET under short-circuit.

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

Cheng Chen, Denis Labrousse, Stéphane Lefebvre, Mickaël Petit, Cyril Buttay, et al.. Robustness of SiC MOSFETs in short-circuit mode. PCIM Europe 2015, May 2015, Nuremberg, Germany. ⟨hal-01196528⟩