New generation of 1200V Silicon Carbide technology boosts power designs
Infineon’s CoolSiC MOSFETs offer a new degree of flexibility for increasing efficiency by using triple the frequency. They will help developers of power conversion schemes to save space and weight, reduce cooling requirements, improve reliability and lower system costs.
“For more than twenty years, Infineon has been at the forefront of developing SiC solutions which address demands for energy savings, size reduction, system integration and improved reliability,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, President of Infineon’s Industrial Power Control Division. “The strategy has now taken a significant step forward encompassing power MOSFETs that raise the benefits available from SiC technology to a new level, which has never before been possible.”
Operating at three times the switching frequency in use today leads to benefits such as reducing the copper and aluminum materials used in magnetics and system housing, facilitating smaller and lighter systems for less transportation effort and easier installation in applications such as photovoltaic inverters, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) or charger/storage systems. Later configurations will also extend support to industrial drives.
The MOSFETs are fully compatible with the +15 V/-5 V voltages typically used to drive IGBTs. They combine a benchmark threshold voltage rating (V th) of 4 V with short-circuit robustness required by the target applications and fully controllable dv/dt characteristics. Key benefits over Si IGBT alternatives include temperature-independent switching losses and threshold-voltage-free on-state characteristics.
The first discrete 1200 V CoolSiC MOSFETs feature on-resistance (RDS(ON)) ratings of 45 mΩ. They will be available in 3-pin and 4-pin TO-247 packages targeted at photovoltaic inverters, UPS, battery charging and energy storage applications. Both devices are ready for use in synchronous rectification schemes thanks to the integration of a commutation robust body diode operating with nearly zero reverse recovery losses. The 4-pin package incorporates an additional (Kelvin) connection to the source, which is used as a reference potential for the gate driving voltage. By eliminating the effect of voltage drops due to source inductance, this further reduces switching losses, especially at higher switching frequencies.
Infineon has also announced 1200 V ‘Easy1B’ half-bridge and booster modules based on the SiC MOSFET technology. Combining PressFIT connections with a good thermal interface, low stray inductance and robust design, each module is available with RDS(ON) of 11 mΩ and 23 mΩ. Infineon will start sampling for target applications in the second half of 2016, with volume production planned for 2017.
More information is available at www.infineon.com/coolSiC.
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