The solid-state DC breakers exhibit high conduction losses due to the high ON-state voltage drop occurring on the power semiconductor devices. This study presents an experimental evaluation of nine commercial 1200V-class power semiconductor device technologies that can be utilized in such breakers in terms of ON-state voltage drop. In addition, this performance evaluation is extended to overdrive operation in order to reduce the anticipated conduction losses. The results revealed the advantageous ON-state performance of the normally-ON SiC JFET at room temperature. Moreover, all the investigated devices significantly reduced their ON-state voltage drop under overdrive operation. Finally, a 30% conduction loss reduction has been achieved at elevated junction temperature when the gate voltage of a normally-ON SiC JFET was increased from 0V to 2V.
