High-Power SiC Diodes: Characteristics, Reliability and Relation to Material Defects

摘要

Benchmarking power devices, Silicon Carbide diodes rate at about 2-3 decades lower in transient losses at the same static loss for voltages 300V - 20kV compared to Silicon. In this paper we present state-of-the-art results of unipolar Junction Barrier Schottky (JBS) diodes for the voltage range of 600-3300V and of bipolar PiN diodes for the range between 3kV and 6 kV. Switching of a power module with SiC diodes at 300Amp against 3000V_(dc) (3800V peak), is reported. Finally, the degradation of the forward properties of bipolar elements is related to the development of extended stacking faults in the epitaxial layer. These faults are found to originate at in-plane dislocations present in the virgin material.