Jochen Hilsenbeck

A Surge Current Stable and Avalanche Rugged SiC Merged pn Schottky Diode Blocking 600V Especially Suited for PFC Applications

Today silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes are mainly used in the power factor control (PFC) unit of high end switched mode power supplies, due to their outstanding switching performance compared to Si pn diodes. In the case of the PFC it is required that the diodes are capable of handling surge currents up to several times the current of normal operation. The paper shows the surge current capability of a merged pn Schottky diode where the p-areas are optimized as efficient emitters. During normal operation the diode is behaving like a normal Schottky diode whereas during surge current condition the diode is behaving like a pn diode. For a sine half wave of 10 ms we achieved a non repetitive peak forward current capability of about 3700 A/cm2 which is about ten times rated current (for comparison: destructive current density of a standard Schottky diode ~ 1650 A/cm²). Additionally the device shows a stable avalanche and is able to withstand a single shot avalanche of 9.5 3s and 12.5 mJ.

SiC Power Devices: Product Improvement Using Diffusion Soldering

SiC power devices have reached a high market penetration, especially for high-voltage applications like switch mode power supplies. In the past, however, the superior material properties like, e.g., good thermal conductivity, have often not been put to full use due to the limitations of current packaging techniques. Especially the inferior thermal conductivity of current die attach materials have been an obstacle to realise the full potential of SiC technologies. In this paper, we describe in detail the use of diffusion solder for the die attach of SiC chips. Replacing the conventional solder layer by a thin metal stack for diffusion soldering, the thermal conductivity of the device is significantly improved. In addition, we show the positive impact of diffusion soldering on the assembly process and on the device reliability. These results are interesting for, both, SiC diodes and switches.

1200V SiC JFET in Cascode Light Configuration: Comparison versus Si and SiC Based Switches

A 1200 V SiC JFET has been demonstrated to achieve ultra-low switching losses ten times lower than for industrial grade 1200V Si IGBT. The low switching losses are also shown to compete with the fastest 600V class MOSFET in the market, yielding 1.1% higher PFC stage efficiency for 340 kHz switching frequency, when same device on-resistances were measured. The proposed normally-on JFET also differentiates over the IGBT by its purely Ohmic output characteristics without any voltage threshold, and by a monolithically integrated body diode with practically zero reverse recovery. In this paper we outline as well how the other pre-requisites for a 1200 V SiC switch in applications such as photovoltaic systems and UPS can be fulfilled by the proposed JFET solution: long-term reliability, product cost optimization by low specific on-resistance combined with reasonable process window expectations. Finally, a normally-off like safe operation behavior is ensured by a dedicated driving scheme utilizing a low-voltage Si MOSFET as protection device at system start-up and for system failure conditions.

A New Generation of SiC Schottky Diodes with Improved Thermal Management and Reduced Capacitive Losses

With the help of an improved die attach the Rth,jc of SiC Schottky diodes can be reduced by 40-50% at a given chip size. This enables a significant higher power density for these SiC diode chips, resulting in a chip shrink of ~ 35% for a given nominal current. This has a significant impact not only on the cost position of the device but also on the switching performance of the diodes, as their capacitive charge directly scales with the chip area. Of course these advantages are accompanied by a small penalty in static losses as the Vf of the diodes at nominal current also slightly increases by the chip shrink. However, the reduction of switching losses dominates upon the marginally increased static losses besides full load operation conditions (which are pretty exceptional in today’s SiC Schottky diode applications) combined with frequencies below 130 kHz. This allows a better competitive positioning against fast Si-based diodes and improved system efficiency at the same time.

Avalanche Capability of Unipolar SiC Diodes: A Feature for Ruggedness and Reliability Improvement

SiC Diodes in the 300 to 1200V range have steadily increased their market penetration in the last 7 years. Especially the 600V SiC diodes are a nearly mandatory device for further increase of power density in modern switch mode power supplies. Those devices entered the market from the high end side due to the still significant higher costs in comparison with conventional fast Si diodes. On the other hand, these high end markets like server or telecom power supplies also require very high reliability of the devices used. In previous papers we showed, that Merged-PN-Schottky (MPS) diodes can be designed for avalanche ruggedness [1,2]. In this paper we will describe, how this feature supports overall reliability improvement. Addditionally, we will show, how a conventional SiC Schottky diode without MPS structure can be modified in order to achieve stable avalanche breakdown in combination with strong reliability improvement.

Investigations on Surge Current Capability of SiC Schottky Diodes by Implementation of New Pad Metallizations

In this paper we describe how a merged pn Schottky diode (MPS diode) is capable to drive surge current levels far beyond the normal current of the diode and how to improve the device in order to achieve even higher surge current levels. For a sine half wave of 10 µs an 8A MPS diode (size: 2.52mm2) with conventional Al pad metallization shows surge current levels of greater than 500A, using Cu it can be increased to ~900A. For 10ms pulse length a different behaviour was observed, here diodes with Al pad metallization show a higher surge current level (80A) compared to Cu pad metallization (~ 40A). The root cause for this negative result at longer pulse time is based in a chemical interaction between Cu and the Schottky metal (Ti). Additionally, an outlook is given how Cu can contribute to improved surge current capability also at longer pulse lengths.

SiC JFETs for Power Module Applications

Starting with the production of Infineon´s first silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes in 2001, a lot of progress was achieved during recent years. Currently, a 3rd generation of MPS (merged pn Schottky) diodes is commercially available combining tremendous improvements with respect to surge current capability and reduced thermal resistance. In this work we present the implementation of SiC switches in power modules and a comparison of these units with the corresponding Si-based power modules. Also the frequency dependence of the total losses of the 1200V configurations using Si-IGBTs or SiC-JFETs as active device is shown, indicating that modules solution with a state of the art SiC JFET outperforms all other options for switching frequencies of 20 kHz and beyond. Additionally a total loss vs. frequency study will be presented. Furthermore, it is show that the switching losses of JFET based modules can be further reduced by reducing the internal distributed gate resistivity.