TY - JOUR
T1 - Safe operating area and long-term reliability of 9-kV silicon carbide PNPN super gate turn-off thyristors
AU - Lawson, Kevin
AU - Bayne, Stephen B.
AU - Lacouture, Shelby
AU - Cheng, Lin
AU - O'brien, Heather
AU - Ogunniyi, Aderinto
AU - Scozzie, Charles
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2014 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/8
Y1 - 2014/8
N2 - One of the major requirements for adoption of new silicon carbide (SiC) super gate turn-off thyristors (SGTOs) into high-energy applications is to verify the safe operating area and long-term reliability capabilities of these devices. In this letter, we have developed a unique high-energy testing system that can evaluate the performance limitations with respect to lifetime capabilities of the 9 kV, 1 cm2 , SGTOs at ultrahigh pulsed current levels from 1 to 3.5 kA. The test system produces square current pulses with a user specified current amplitude and a 100- μs pulsewidth at a maximum repetition rate of 1 shot/s (>0.1% duty cycle). A lifetime safe operating area with respect to maximum pulsed current was then established that these 1 cm2 , 9 kV, SiC SGTOs can perform reliably without significant degradation at pulsed current levels up to 2.0 kA. At current levels above 2.0 kA shifts in the on-state voltage are observed probably due to device over-heating at such high current levels and having not enough time to fully dissipate the heat between any two shots, which results in the device rapidly deteriorating due to increased on-state losses ultimately leading to premature failure.
AB - One of the major requirements for adoption of new silicon carbide (SiC) super gate turn-off thyristors (SGTOs) into high-energy applications is to verify the safe operating area and long-term reliability capabilities of these devices. In this letter, we have developed a unique high-energy testing system that can evaluate the performance limitations with respect to lifetime capabilities of the 9 kV, 1 cm2 , SGTOs at ultrahigh pulsed current levels from 1 to 3.5 kA. The test system produces square current pulses with a user specified current amplitude and a 100- μs pulsewidth at a maximum repetition rate of 1 shot/s (>0.1% duty cycle). A lifetime safe operating area with respect to maximum pulsed current was then established that these 1 cm2 , 9 kV, SiC SGTOs can perform reliably without significant degradation at pulsed current levels up to 2.0 kA. At current levels above 2.0 kA shifts in the on-state voltage are observed probably due to device over-heating at such high current levels and having not enough time to fully dissipate the heat between any two shots, which results in the device rapidly deteriorating due to increased on-state losses ultimately leading to premature failure.
KW - Electronic devices
KW - SGTO
KW - life testing
KW - power semiconductor switches
KW - safe operating area
KW - semiconductor device reliability
KW - semiconductor device testing
KW - semiconductor devices
KW - silicon carbide
KW - thyristors
KW - wide band gap semiconductors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905083719&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/LED.2014.2329795
DO - 10.1109/LED.2014.2329795
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84905083719
VL - 35
SP - 862
EP - 864
JO - IEEE Electron Device Letters
JF - IEEE Electron Device Letters
SN - 0741-3106
IS - 8
M1 - 6844851
ER -