Silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductor supplier GeneSiC Semiconductor Inc of Dulles, VA, USA has announced availability of a gate driver evaluation board and has expanded its design support for its SiC junction transistor (SJT, claimed to be the industry’s lowest-loss switches) with a fully qualified LTSPICE IV model.
Using the gate driver board, power conversion circuit designers can verify the benefits of the sub-15ns temperature-independent switching characteristics of SiC junction transistors, with low driver power losses. Incorporating the new SPICE models, circuit designers can evaluate what are claimed to be the SJT’s benefits in achieving a higher level of efficiency than is possible with conventional silicon power switching devices for comparably rated devices.
SiC junction transistors have significantly different characteristics compared with other SiC transistor technologies as well as silicon transistors. Gate driver boards that can provide low power losses while still offering high switching speeds are needed to provide drive solutions for utilizing the benefits of SiC junction transistors, says GeneSiC. The fully isolated GA03IDDJT30-FR4 gate driver board takes in 0/12V and a TTL signal to optimally condition the voltage/current waveforms required to provide small rise/fall times, while still minimizing the continuous current requirement for keeping the normally-OFF SJT conducting during the on-state. The pin configuration and form factors are kept similar to other SiC transistors. GeneSiC has also released Gerber files and BOMs (bill of materials) to end-users to enable them to incorporate the benefits of the driver design innovations realized.
SJTs offer well-behaved on-state and switching characteristics, making it easy to create behavior-based SPICE models that agree remarkably well with the underlying physics-based models as well. Using well-established and understood physics-based models, SPICE parameters were released after extensive testing with device behavior. GeneSiC says that its SPICE models are compared to the experimentally measured data on all device datasheets and are applicable to all 1200V and 1700V SiC junction transistors released.
The SJTs are capable of delivering switching frequencies that are more than 15 times higher than IGBT-based solutions, reckons the firm. Their higher switching frequencies can enable smaller magnetic and capacitive elements, shrinking the overall size, weight and cost of power electronics systems, it adds.
The SPICE model adds to GeneSiC’s suite of design support tools, technical documentation, and reliability information to provide the design resources necessary to implement the firm’s family of SiC junction transistors and rectifiers into the next generation of power systems.
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GeneSiC launches 1700V and 1200V SiC junction transistors
