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Silicon Carbide: Beyond the Design and Packaging
S
ilicon carbide has a long history that dates from its observation in 1824 by Berzelius and its first appli- cation in the early 20th century in an LED. The LED
By Elena Barbarini
Until 2018, the primary market for SiC was for diodes used in PFC and PV inverters. Since 2018, many applications, such as battery charging, on-board DC/DC systems, photovoltaics, and uninterruptible power supplies, have proven to benefit widely from the use of SiC devices. In solar inverters, SiC MOSFETs have been used to achieve the highest possible effi- ciency, reduce footprint and weight, and simplify the inverter topology. The use of SiC is expected to continue increas- ing in these markets, with a push toward full-SiC modules. Some development is still needed to reach the high voltage and reliability required for applications like rail and wind, but every rail company is studying and evaluating SiC tech- nologies. Besides those large-volume applications, numer- ous smaller segments can be penetrated by SiC MOSFETs, including health care, welding, high-end air conditioning, and certain motor drive applications with special requirements for power density and/or switching frequency.
In recent years, the global challenge of CO2 reduction has
application was soon superseded by gallium arsenide and gallium nitride, and we had to wait for the 21st century for the first commercial 1,200-V JFETs by SemiSouth Laboratories in 2008 and the first commercial 1,200-V MOSFETs by Cree in 2011. Today, we find both SiC diodes and transistors in mass production. SiC Schottky barrier diodes still constitute most of the current power SiC device market, though transistors are rapidly increasing their market share.
Being able to reach temperatures exceeding 175˚C to 200˚C, theoretically, SiC is a perfect candidate for high-power– density systems. Today, it is widely accepted that SiC enables performance and cost benefits at the system level. At the device level, SiC is still expensive compared with silicon, but its performance advantages are compelling end users to choose it more often.
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ASPENCORE GUIDE TO SILICON CARBIDE