Towards Very High Voltage SiC Power Devices

Dominique Planson (1, 2) , Pierre Brosselard (1, 2) , Dominique Tournier (1, 2) , L V Phung (1, 2) , C. Brylinski (3)

1 EE - Ampère, Département Energie Electrique
2 INSA Lyon - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon
3 LMI - Laboratoire des Multimatériaux et Interfaces

The development of high voltage devices is a great challenge. At least, railway and high voltage distribution network are example of applications requiring high voltage devices. SiC power devices and technology seems to be mature enough to give a short term solution. Indeed, silicon carbide devices appear to be the semiconductor of choice for high voltage (> 6.5 kV) applications compared to Gallium Nitride and Diamond. For high voltage devices, periphery protection is mandatory in order to reduce the well-known electric field crowding taking place at the junction edge. Some details are given about the different periphery technics (JTE, guard rings, MESA) applied to SiC devices, before combining some of them to reach higher and higher breakdown voltages. Some works remaining to be done are given as a conclusion of this paper.

Domaines: Electronique

Dominique Planson, Pierre Brosselard, Dominique Tournier, L V Phung, C. Brylinski. Towards Very High Voltage SiC Power Devices. PRiME 2012-ECS, Oct 2012, Honolulu-Hawaii, United States. ⟨10.1149/05003.0425ecst⟩. ⟨hal-02116906⟩