In high frequency power conversion applications, the dominant mechanism attributed to power loss is the turn-on and -off transition times. To this end, a full-bridge silicon carbide (SiC) multi-chip power module (MCPM) was designed to minimize parasitics in order to reduce over-voltage/current spikes as well as resistance in the power path. The MCPM was designed and packaged using high temperature (> 200 °C) materials and processes. Using these advanced packaging materials and devices, the SiC MCPM was designed to exhibit low thermal resistance which was modeled using three-dimensional finite-element analysis and experimentally verified to be 0.18 °C/W. A good agreement between the model and experiment was achieved. MCPMs were assembled and the gate leakage, drain leakage, on-state characteristics, and on-resistance were measured over temperature. To verify low parasitic design, the SiC MCPM was inserted into a boost converter configuration and the switching characteristics were investigated. Extremely low rise and fall times of 16.1 and 7.5 ns were observed, respectively. The boost converter demonstrated an efficiency of > 98.6% at 4.8 kW operating at a switching frequency of 250 kHz. In addition, a peak efficiency of 96.5% was achieved for a switching frequency of 1.2 MHz and output power of 3 kW.
ENHANCING POWER ELECTRONIC DEVICES WITH WIDE BANDGAP SEMICONDUCTORS
