Wolfspeed to showcase SiC MOSFETs at APEC 2017
Wolfspeed will be showcasing its latest SiC MOSFET technology at this year's Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC 2017), which will take place March 26th to 30th in Tampa, Florida.
"We're excited to showcase our recent expansions to the Wolfspeed Gen3 SiC MOSFET family, especially the innovative, low-inductance packaging that delivers the industry's lowest figure of merit essentially the best ratio of reverse-recovery losses to on-state resistance," said Guy Moxey, Wolfspeed's senior director of power products.
The company will demonstrate the newly designed low-inductance packaging as well as the new 900V 10mΩ MOSFET for EV drive train applications, and the hardware for a 20kW two-level full-bridge LLC resonant converter using 1000V SiC MOSFETs in a new TO-247-4L package.
Wolfspeed will also demonstrate an evaluation unit that provides a modular, configurable circuit design and uses standard components to enable design engineers to rapidly optimise three-phase SiC power module designs for improved performance, efficiency, thermal management, and circuit protection.
Simplifying and streamlining the design process of incorporating Wolfspeed SiC modules into power systems, the evaluation kit demo shows how the new 900V, 10mΩ MOSFET in the three-phase power evaluation unit enables designers to easily use SiC power modules from 900 1700V and up to 200kW. The evaluation kit uses Wolfspeed's HT-3291-R-VB SiC power module containing four new 900V 10mOhm MOSFETs per switch position enclosed in a redesigned package with >3kV isolation voltage and ITGD2-3011 gate drivers.
In the demo for the two-level full-bridge LLC resonant converter, two parallel devices are connected at each switch position to deliver 20kW of continuous output power with a wide output voltage range of 300 570VDC at peak efficiency of >98 percent. The high switching speed of SiC MOSFETs results in extremely short dead times, according to the company, which in turn enables the design of compact resonant tank circuit components with resonant frequencies of 110 350kHz. Additionally, the 1kV rating of the SiC MOSFETs allows for a simple 2-level topology, despite the wide input voltage range of 650 750VDC.
This design is suitable for DC fast charger applications for EVs, as well as other applications that require an isolated DC/DC converter. The hardware features integrated, isolated forced-air cooling, and delivers 33 percent more power with 20 percent fewer components in a smaller footprint than conventional Si-based multilevel designs.
