Experimental Characterization and Electro-Thermal Modeling of Double Side Cooled SiC MOSFETs for Accurate and Rapid Power Converter Simulations

Abstract

The paper presents a precise and efficient model of Double-Side Cooled (DSC) SiC MOSFET, which incorporates the dynamics of both electrical and thermal variables. It offers a suitable computational complexity for simulating transients in complex power converters. The objective is to define a model that enables multi-scale time simulations and facilitates rapid power converter design in system-level tools such as Simulink. Additionally, the model aims to achieve simulation accuracy comparable to device-level models for the next generation of SiC MOSFETs. The paper demonstrates the complete test bench measurement procedure for the device. This procedure is essential for experimentally extrapolating the intrinsic characteristics and developing a model-reduction approach based on electro-thermal modeling. The approach strikes a balance between computational complexity and level of detail. The proposed model has been seamlessly integrated into Simulink to simulate a 3-phase inverter for several grid cycles at the grid frequency. To evaluate the model’s validity, the predicted inverter performance is compared with experimental measurements. These simulations require significantly less time compared to those based on LTspice models.

Keywords

• Model-based design
• multi-scale
• simulation
• power measures
• power converters
• silicon carbide (SiC)