Query: Recent Advances in Silicon Carbide Device Based Power MOSFETs

Candidate papers:

abstract: Silicon Carbide (SiC) has revolutionized the semiconductor power devices. It is a wide band gap semiconductor with an energy gap wider than 2eV and possesses extremely high power high voltage switching characteristics, high thermal, chemical and mechanical stability. The SiC wafers are available in 6H, 4H, 2H and 3C polytypes. Because of its wide band gap, the leakage current of SiC is many orders of magnitude lower than in Silicon. Also forward resistance of SiC power devices is approximately 200 times lower than conventional silicon devices. The breakdown voltage of SiC is 8 10 times higher than that of Silicon. In this paper DIMOSFET, UMOSFET and Lateral Power MOSFET are discussed along with their characteristics and applications. Different Crystal structures used for SiC are also highlighted in this paper.
author_names: Munish Vashishath
title: Recent Advances in Silicon Carbide Device Based Power MOSFETs
year: 2020

abstract: Abstract Thin films of silicon carbide (SiC) have been grown at 1000 1500 degC on vicinal and on axis a(6H) SiC(0001) substrates by gas source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE) Growth using only SiH 4 and C 2 H 4 resulted in 3C SiC(111) epilayers under all deposition conditions and substrate orientations. With the addition of H 2 films of 6H SiC(0001) were deposited on the vicinal substrates at deposition temperatures 1350 degC. Kinetic analysis showed all depositions to be surface reaction controlled. In situ doping was achieved by intentional introduction of nitrogen and aluminum into the growing crystals. SiC based microelectronic devices operable at elevated temperatures, including several types of power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) bipolar transistors, and thyristors have been fabricated. The properties of selected devices and the circuits made from them are described.
author_names: R Scott Kern

Robert F Davis
title: Silicon carbide for high temperature microelectronics: recent advances in material growth via gas source MBE and device research
year: 1997

abstract: Medium voltage (MV) Silicon Carbide (SiC) power devices have become available as engineering samples. Recent studies show that they outperform their Silicon (Si) counterparts regarding voltage blocking capability, specific on state resistance, switching speed and maximum allowable junction temperature. It is projected that MV SiC power devices will bring revolutionary changes in medium and high voltage applications such as traction drives for locomotives, industrial motor drives, utility power transmission systems, etc. This paper presents a summary of recent advances in MV SiC power devices, including MOSFETs, IGBTs, GTOs and super cascode devices. Technical challenges of their applications such as device packaging, gate drive design and gate drive auxiliary power supply design are discussed. Testing results of three state of the art MV SiC devices, including a 4 kV, 5 A discrete SiC MOSFET, a 4.5 kV, 40 A SiC super cascode device and a 10 kV, 40 A SiC MOSFET power module, are presented as examples.
author_names: Boxue Hu

Xintong Lyu

Diang Xing

Dihao Ma

John Alex Brothers

Risha Na

Jin Wang
title: A Survey on Recent Advances of Medium Voltage Silicon Carbide Power Devices
venue: 2018 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)
year: 2018

abstract: Emerging silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET power devices promise to displace silicon IGBTs from the majority of challenging power electronics applications by enabling superior efficiency and power density, as well as capability to operate at higher temperatures. This paper reports on the recent progress in development of 1200V SiC power MOSFETs. Two different chip sizes were fabricated and tested: 15A (0.225cmx0.45cm) and 30A (0.45cmx0.45cm) devices. First, the 30A MOSFETs were packaged as discrete components and static and switching measurements were performed. The device blocking voltage was 1200V and typical on resistance was less than 50 mO with gate source voltages of 0V and 20V, respectively. The total switching losses were 0.6 mJ, over five times lower than the competing devices. Next, a buck converter was built for evaluating long term stability of the MOSFETs and typical switching waveforms are presented. Finally, the 15A MOSFETs were used for fabrication of 150A all SiC modules. The module on resistance values were in the range of 10 mQ, resulting in the best in class on state voltage values of 1.5V at nominal current. The module switching losses were 2.3 mJ during turn on and 1 mJ during turn off, also significantly better than competing designs. The results validate performance advantages of the SiC MOSFETs, moving them a step closer to power electronics applications.
author_names: Ljubisa Dragoljub Stevanovic

Kevin S Matocha

Peter Almern Losee

John Stanley Glaser

Jeffrey Joseph Nasadoski

S D Arthur
title: Recent advances in silicon carbide MOSFET power devices
venue: 2010 Twenty Fifth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC)
year: 2010

abstract: In order to avoid the loss caused by sudden power failure or loss, UPS is very necessary.As the core part of UPS, the efficiency of DC DC converter improvement has been a long term research direction in the industry.Switch tube loss are the main factors influencing the DCDC converter efficiency, SI power component is affected by its material, its performance is difficult to further improve, seriously affect the efficiency of the DC DC converter, SiC semiconductor with high band gap width, the advantages of high heat conductivity and high electric breakdown strength in recent years become a hot research direction at home and abroad, and silicon carbide material improves the device the possibility of high frequency, miniaturization and efficiency.Compared with Si power devices, the advantages of SiC power devices are higher voltage and temperature resistance, higher operating frequency and lower switching losses.
author_names: Pengfei Zhang

Xiu Ying Ren

Hong Zhang

Dewen Zhang

See Lan

Siwei Han

Meng Wang
title: Research on Efficiency Improvement of UPS Based on Silicon Carbide MOSFET
year: 2020

abstract: With the many well known attributes of wide bandgap (WBG) power devices, especially silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) FETs, the WBG adoption has been growing constantly for the past few years. Lately, with significant improvements in reliability and commercial availability, several manufacturers have taken SiC and GaN based products to production. Market data from research firms, such as Yole and IHS, show that this trend will continue to rise during the next five to 10 years.
author_names: Ashok Bindra
title: Recent Advances in Gate Driver Integrated Circuits for Wide Bandgap FETs: Manufacturers introduce gate drivers for squeezing the best performance out of WBG devices
venue: IEEE Power Electronics Magazine
year: 2019

abstract: This paper presents recent research on several silicon carbide (SiC) power devices. The devices have been tested for both static and dynamic characteristics, which show the advantages over their Si counterparts. The temperature dependency of these characteristics has also been presented in this paper. Then, simulation work of paralleling operation of SiC power MOSFETs based on a verified device model in Pspice is presented to show the impact of parasitics in the circuit on the switching performance.
author_names: Yutian Cui

Madhu Sudhan Chinthavali

Fan Xu

Leon M Tolbert
title: Characterization and modeling of silicon carbide power devices and paralleling operation
venue: 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics
year: 2012

abstract: In recent years, silicon carbide (SiC) high power devices have received widespread attention with the development of wide bandgap semiconductor. Using multi scale modelling (finite element and molecular dynamics simulations) a considerable weakness breakdown region was revealed at P base corner near JFET region under overvoltage condition due to electronic field gathered. Besides, a hot pot is observed in JFET region when SiC MOSFET is shorted in circuit. The molecular dynamics simulations suggest that high temperature makes electrode metal melted and gate oxide also becomes unreliable above the hot spot area.
author_names: Kai Zheng

Hou-Cai Luo

Liming Wang

Chun-Jian Tan

Shao-Gang Wang

Huaiyu Ye

Xianping Chen
title: Multi scale modelling of internal failure mechanism of SiC power MOSFETs
venue: 2018 19th International Conference on Thermal, Mechanical and Multi Physics Simulation and Experiments in Microelectronics and Microsystems (EuroSimE)
year: 2018

abstract: Abstract Gallium oxide possesses material properties that are advantageous for power electronic devices. Combined with the availability of native Ga2O3 substrates, Ga2O3 based devices are projected to supplant Si based as well as GaN and SiC based power electronics over a certain slice of the high voltage, low frequency application space. The b type of Ga2O3 is clearly the most developed polymorph of Ga2O3. Devices based on b Ga2O3 have not reached below the expected 8 MV/cm theoretical value for breakdown voltage. The best Schottky barrier diodes based on b Ga2O3 have achieved a breakdown strength of only approximately 1 MV/cm. Recent results in Schottky diodes fabricated from 0.43 mm mist grown a Ga2O3 displayed a breakdown strength of 12 MV/cm. For transistors, a 3.8 MV/cm breakdown strength was obtained for a 0.65 mm channel length device. The best reported breakdown voltage of 755 V only corresponds to 0.5 MV/cm breakdown strength that was obtained for a 15 mm channel length device. As material quality improves, it is expected that the experimental breakdown voltages will approach the theoretical predictions. A clear research path is that large area and vertical devices will mirror the designs of silicon and silicon carbide power devices particularly with an emphasis on vertical design with defined conduction paths. The relatively low thermal conductivity of Ga2O3 creates self heating effects that must be mitigated in order to utilize Ga2O3 for high power at even moderate switching frequencies. Lastly, the current state of p type b Ga2O3 is currently an issue to utilized pn junctions to define the current path in vertical devices. This issue, like many aspects of Ga2O3, is rapidly evolving.
author_names: Michael A Mastro
title: Power MOSFETs and diodes
year: 2019

abstract: Abstract Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) devices are considered as optimal solutions to meet the requirements of the modern power electronics. In fact, they can allow an improved efficiency in energy conversion at high power, as required today in several strategic application fields (like consumer electronics, renewable energies technology, transportation, electric power distribution, etc. However, while in the last decades impressive progresses have been recorded both in SiC and GaN devices, the full exploitation of these materials has not been reached yet, due to some open technological key issues. This paper reviews some recent advances in dielectrics technology currently adopted to optimize the performances of SiC and GaN transistors. In particular, in the case of SiC the discussion is focused on the optimization of SiO2/SiC interfaces in 4H SiC MOSFETs technology by passivation processes of the gate oxides. On the other hand, the current trends in dielectrics passivation for GaN based HEMTs to limit the gate leakage and the current collapse are discussed.
author_names: Fabrizio Roccaforte

Patrick Fiorenza

Giuseppe Greco

Marilena Vivona

R Lo Nigro

Filippo Giannazzo

Alfonso Patti

M Saggio
title: Recent advances on dielectrics technology for SiC and GaN power devices
year: 2014