Evaluation of a 600V 450A Hybrid SIC Power Module
Wei Su, Jun Liu , Xuhui Wen
Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, Key Laboratory of Power
Electronics and Electric Drive, institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Beijing Engineering
Laboratory of Electrical Drive System & Power Electronic Device packaging Technology suwei@mail.iee.ac.cn
Corresponding author: wxh@mail.iee.ac.cn
Abstract
Compared with the silicon(SI) power devices, silicon carbide(SIC) power devices are expected to have a
great impact on inverter efficiency, weight, volume and reliability. In order to research on the SIC power
devices, A hybrid module with SI IGBT and SIC diodes was built. In this paper, characters of SIC diodes
and SI diodes were tested in the dynamic and static parameters tester. Than switch characters of the all SI
module and hybrid SIC module were compared in double pulse platform. Finally, inverter loss of all SI
inverter and hybrid sic inverter was tested, in the permanent magnet synchronous motor.
Keywords: SIC diode, Hybrid SIC module, Inverter
1
Introduction
Silicon (Si) power modules have been widely
used in the inverters, while the Si power module
has the higher reverse recovery current of diodes
which can lead to the higher turning on loss of
IGBT and reverse recovery loss of diodes.
Silicon carbide (SiC) has been identified as a
material with the potential to replace Si devices
in the near term because of its superior material
advantages such as wider bandgap, high thermal
conductivity and higher critical breakdown field
strength. SiC devices are capable of operating at
high voltage, high frequencies and low reverse
recovery current. So the power modules with SiC
device can reduce the switching loss and increase
the efficiency [1-4].
For the heat dissipation of the IGBT power
module, one of the most popular research focus
is using the direct cooling technology to integrate
the radiating fins into the copper substrate of the
power module in the design phase [5,6]. This
structure ensures the installation of the IGBT
module doesn't need to use the thermal interface
materials to connect the module copper substrate
and the cooling plate any longer, thus makes the
entire thermal resistance of the module reduced
significantly
In this paper, firstly, a design and development
of hybrid SiC module was described. Than the
Static characteristics and Dynamic reverse
recovery characteristics of diodes was tested in the
dynamic and static parameters tester. At last, the
performance of the module was verified in the
laboratory.
2
Design and Development of
Hybrid SIC module
In order to test the characters, the new module with
SIC diodes was packed to apply the diodes of
Silicon carbide.
2.1
Layout of the hybrid module
The hybrid SIC module was comprised of three
parallel direct copper bond (DBC) module. The
DBC consists of SIC diodes and IGBT chip. The
EconoDual packaged hybrid modules were shown
in Figure1.
。
EVS28 International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition
Figure 1: Layout of hybrid module
1
According to the practical application of the
inverter, we use the ROHM’s new generation
600V/20A SiC SBD die. The size of the chip was
2.3×2.3mm. According to the calculation and
simulation, we use seven 600V/20A SiC SBD in
parallel to replace the Infineon’s 600V 150A
diode chips. The IGBT chip was SiDC38D60C6
which was made in Infineon.
Design of direct cooling copper
plate
Heat dissipation is one of the key factors that
affect IGBT’s performance and reliability.
Researchers have carried out the related research
on how the fins’ shapes and array’s dimensions
affect the heat dissipation at home and abroad.
Through the simulation, several structures of the
copper plate were contrasted. At last the
cylindrical structure was selected, because of the
processing technology and cost. The copper
cylinder structure of the pin-fin was that the
height is 8.0mm and the diameter is 2.4mm. the
pin-fin structure of the copper plate was shown in
Figure2.
℃
℃
℃
℃
25
SI
25
SIC
125
SI
125
SIC
600
Diode forward current A
2.2
700
500
400
300
200
100
0
0
1
2
3
Diode forward voltage V
4
Figure 3: I-V characteristics of diodes
3.2
Dynamic
Reverse
Characteristics
Recovery
In order to compare the reverse recovery
characteristics, modules were tested using the
dynamic and static parameters tester. The test
parameters are as follows: the bus voltage was
300V; the turning off current of the diode was
450A; The reverse recovery current was shown in
Figure 4. It can be observed that the peak reverse
recovery current of the si diode was much higher
than that of the sic diode at the same forward
current. So the SIC diode reverse recovery loss
will be much smaller than SI diode.
Figure 2: Pin-fin structure of the copper plate
3
I-V Characteristics
In order to compare the performance of SIC SBD
and SI diodes, two different modules were
packed. One was packed with SIC SBD and
another was packed with SI diodes. The two
modules use the same IGBT chips. The diodes
characteristics were tested in the dynamic and
static parameters tester.
3.1
Static Characteristics
After extensive testing using the dynamic and
static parameters tester, I-V characteristics of two
different diodes were obtained in the 25 and
150 . We can see from Figure3, We can get the
conclusion that the SIC diode has positive
temperature coefficient. Therefore the sic diode
was more suitable for parallel chips.
℃
℃
Diode reverse recovery current (A)
500
si25
sic25
400
300
200
100
0
-100
-1
-0.5
0
Times (s)
0.5
1
-6
x 10
Figure 4: Diodes reverse recovery current
4
Switching Characteristics
In order to compare the performance of all SI
modules and hybrid SIC modules, the double pulse
platform was built in the laboratory. The bus
voltage was 300V and the turn off di/dt of diode
was -2400A/us. Both the hybrid SiC module and
the all SI module were tested with the same
procedure and the same conditions.
EVS28 International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition
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Turning on Characters of two kinds of IGBT
module was shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6.
(VCC:collector-to-emitter voltage. Vge: gate drive
voltage; Ic: collector current).We can get that,
the hybrid SiC power module has small peak
rising current.
Figure 7: Reverse recovery current of Hybrid SiC
module
Figure 5: Turning on Characters of hybrid SiC module
Figure 8: Reverse recovery current of All Si power
module
5
Figure 6: Turning on Characters of all Si module
Figure 7 shows that the reverse recovery current
and the voltage of diodes. We can see the
recovery current of SiC hybrid power module
was almost zero. Figure 8 shows the peak reverse
recovery current of Si power module up to 60A.
(ID: diode forward current; VDR: diodes
voltage).We can get the result that diodes reverse
recovery current of hybrid SiC module was much
smaller than all Si modules.
Three-Phase
Testing
Motor
Load
In order to compare the loss, 100kw three-phase
inverters were built in the laboratory. The bus
voltage was 340V and the torque was 47.5NM.
Both the hybrid SIC modules and all SI modules
were installed in the same inverters with the same
conditions. The collector-emitter voltage of IGBT
and motor phase current was shown in Figure9. As
we can see from the waveform, the effective value
of the motor phase current was 150A .
EVS28 International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition
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models” Power Electronics Specialists Conference,
2002(3):1269-1276.
Figure 9: The collector-emitter voltage and output
current
The inverter loss was obtained for a wide range
of speed and the inverter efficiency was shown in
Figure10, we can see the efficiency of hybrid sic
inverter was higher than the all SI inverter.
[2]
B. Ozpineci, M.S.Chinthavali, L.M.Tolbert,
A.Kashyap, H.A.Mantooth “A 55KW Three-Phase
Inverter with Si IGBTs and SiC Schottky Diodes”
IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2009,
Vol. 45(1):278-285.
[3]
B.Ozpineci, L.M.Tolbert, S.K.Islam, F.Z.Peng,
“Testing characterization and modeling of SiC
diodes for transportation applications” IEEE
Power Electronics Specialists Conference, June
23-27,2002,Cairns,Australia,pp.1673-1678.
[4]
Dr.jimmy Liu, Kin Lap Wong, Paul Kierstead.
“Increase Efficiency and Lower System Cost with
100KHz,10KW silicon carbide(SiC) interleaved
Boost circuit Design” PcimAsia2013:124-129
[5]
K. Sasaki, M. Hiyoshi, “Low thermal resistance
and high reliability packaging technologies of
IGBT module for wind power applications,”
Power Electronics, 2010,(4):57-61.
[6]
Sun Wei, Liu Jun, Ma Chonghui, et al., “New
direct cooling technology research of IGBT power
module,” Electric Drive, 2014, Vol. 44(1):81-84.
98
97.5
All si inverter
Hybrid sic inverter
inverter efficiency (%)
97
96.5
Authors
96
95.5
95
94.5
94
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
motor speed (r/min)
9000
10000
Figure 10: Inverter efficiency
6
Conclusions
In this paper, a newly hybrid SIC module with
direct cooling copper plate was designed. The
newly hybrid SIC module and all SI module were
tested with the same procedure in the same
conditions. The test results of the dynamic and
static parameters tester show that the sic diodes
positive temperature coefficient and has smaller
reverse recovery current. The double pulse test
the three-phase inverters experiments were
verified the results that the inverter efficiency of
hybrid SIC module was higher than SI module.
Wei su was born in 1984,he received
the master degree in electrical
engineering from the Yanshan
university in 2011. Since June 2011
he worked in Institute of Electrical
Engineering, Chinese Academy of
Sciences. His main fields of research
in power electronic converter device.
Xuhui Wen received the doctor’s
degree from the Tsinghua university
in 1993. Since 1993, he worked in
Institute of Electrical Engineering,
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her
current research interests include
motor drive , power electronic
converters, power semiconductor
device package.
References
[1]
A T.R.Mcnutt, A.R.Hefner, H.A.Mantooth,
J.L.Duliere, D.W.Berning, R.Singh. “Paranmeter
extraction sequence for silicon carbide schottky
merged PIN schottky and PIN power diode
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