Optimization of 1700V SiC MOSFET for Short Circuit Ruggedness

This work focuses on the ruggedness aspect of SiC MOSFET technology discussing design advances to maximize SiC device benefits for industrial and transportation power conversion applications. These improvements were studied as a tradeoff between short circuit withstand time (τsc) and device on-state resistance (RDS(on)) at operating temperature (150°C) utilizing 1.7kV MOSFETs fabricated on 2.25x4.5mm2 die. Up to two times improvement in τsc with only 20% of RDS(on) increase was achieved for design with reduced source region doping.