Silicon Carbide (SiC) devices improve the power density of various converters by shrinking the size of passive components and improving the power conversion efficiency; and most importantly, only proper SiC device design can guarantee the level of reliability required by most professional, industrial or hi-rel. applications. This seminar presents an in-depth summary of SiC devices and their applications to help converter designers at different levels to achieve the full benefits, and face the challenges found, when using SiC devices; additionally, proper design guidelines are needed to extract the maximum benefit from using SiC devices.
The presentation will begin with an introduction of SiC technology status. A summary of internal device structure and principle of operation will be discussed to understand the potential benefits achievable with devices built on SiC technology’s reliable design. Detailed static and dynamic characteristics, thermal performance and device ruggedness will be discussed with related datasheet parameters to also assess the superior performance of SiC devices over Si. Optimal implementation of SiC MOSFETs will be discussed in detail: starting from driving voltage selection, driving circuit design and advanced driving concepts to then cover converter level optimization aspects such as thermal management and EMI noise control. This will provide power converter designers with the design guidelines to implement SiC devices appropriately and ensure their maximum benefits. Specific design examples in real applications such as EV chargers and DC Solid State Circuit Breakers will be presented with real hardware and test results to verify the benefit of using SiC devices in system size, weight and cost reduction compared with Si devices.
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