Introduction

Enrico Santi
Copyright © 2019 Enrico Santi, All rights reserved.
Research in Power Electronics
including Modeling of Wide
Bandgap Power Devices
Enrico Santi
University of South Carolina

Today at 5:15pm
Brief CV
• Bachelor – University of Padova, Italy, 1988
• Ph.D. – Caltech (Profs. Cuk and Middlebrook) 1993
• Design Engineer – TESLAco 1993 – 1998
Design of custom switching power supplies
• University of South Carolina 1998 – present

• Published more than 150 papers in international journals and

conference proceedings, 3 books, 4 book chapters
• Graduated 17 PhDs and 11 MS
Lecture Series
• Power Electronics Developments Using Wide Bandgap Semiconductor
Devices

• Objective: Provide an introduction to wide bandgap power devices

in power electronics

4
Lecture Series
• Power Electronics Developments Using Wide Bandgap Semiconductor
Devices
• Provide an understanding of requirements of semiconductor devices for
power electronics applications
• Discuss wide bandgap power semiconductor devices and their characteristics
• Discuss in detail the switching process in switching power converters and the
influence of parasitics on switching performance
• Discuss modeling of power semiconductor devices
• Discuss various power electronics applications that can benefit from the use
of wide bandgap power semiconductor devices

5
Questions to be answered
• Wide bandgap materials have superior material properties for power
electronics, What does that mean?
• The Baliga Figure of Merit for SiC and GaN is almost three orders of
magnitude larger than for Silicon. What does that mean?
• What devices are currently available in SiC and GaN?
• What is a GaN HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor)?
• What are the advantages of wide bandgap devices?
• What are the obstacles to the introduction of wide bandgap devices?
Teaching Philosophy
• “Need to see a topic at least three times to really learn it” → some
important topics will be reinforced throughout the lectures
• Will not go too deep into semiconductor physics
• Discuss practical aspects of WBG device usage – gate drives, power
modules, etc.
• Discuss power semiconductor device modeling
Student Background
• Circuits
• Power electronics
• Buck converter
• Three-phase inverter
• Analysis of converters in steady state
• Resistive vs inductive switching
Student Background
• Semiconductor physics
• Bandgap
• Holes and electrons
• Drift and diffusion currents
• Unipolar vs bipolar devices
Power Electronics
 In a Nutshell

Converts power from given input form to

desired output form in a controllable way
with high efficiency
All electronics needs electric power
LEDs

https://www.powerelectronictips.com/teardown-60-w-equivalent-led-bulbs/
Electric motors are used to provide mechanical
energy at precisely controllable speeds

Robot assembly
line
Electric motors are used to provide mechanical
energy at precisely controllable speeds

Paper Mill
Electric motors are used to provide mechanical
energy at precisely controllable speeds
DC Motor Drive
What is inside (simplified)?
Induction Motor Drive

Bench Grinder

The Tesla Model S uses an AC

induction motor with a power
electronics drive
Induction motor drive
Alternative energy

Converter needed to interface

Smart Grid,
Microgrids
Sustainable House
Plug-in car
 Many Applications of Power
Electronics

POWER MOTOR DRIVES RENEWABLE SMART GRID

SUPPLIES FOR FOR ENERGY AND
ELECTRONICS AUTOMATION INTERFACES MICROGRIDS
Switching Converters
• Buck converter
• Lowpass filter
• Frequency domain filtering requirements
• Semiconductor industry has history of “smaller, faster, and cheaper”
meaning improved performance and reduced cost while shrinking
packaging size
• For power products improved performance means:
• Increased efficiency and power density
• Higher power handling capability
• Wider operating temperature range
Desired Characteristics of Power
Semiconductor Devices

• Efficiency

• Reliability

• Controllability

• Cost effectiveness
Why Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices?
• Silicon is very well established
• Silicon is reaching its theoretical performance limits based on material
properties
• Wide bandgap materials have superior material properties for power
electronics applications
• Now: SiC and GaN
• Future: also C (diamond), AlN
State-of-the-art in Silicon • Three axes:
voltage, current and
frequency
• MOSFETs and Schottky
diodes for high frequency
• IGBTs and BJTs for
moderate frequencies
• GTOs and Thyristors for
low frequencies
(sometimes not fully
controllable)
Material Properties of SiC Make it Ideal for
High Voltage/Temperature Applications
Properties Si SiC GaN
EG [eV] 1.12 3.2 3.4
EBR [MV/cm] 0.3 3.5 3.3
vS [x107 cm/s] 1.0 2.0 2.5
µ [cm2/Vs] 1500 650 900 - 2000

• Wide Bandgap  • Large Thermal Conductivity

• High temperature operation with • High power operation with lower
reduced cooling requirements (lower ni) due to self heating
• Large Critical Electric Field
• High voltage operation with lower • Large Saturation Velocity
resistance • High Frequency operation with
• Increased switching speed, smaller reduced size of passives (less
dimensions  
2
4 ( 𝐵𝑉 ) weight and volume)
𝑅𝑜𝑛 , 𝑠𝑝 = 3
𝜀 𝜇𝑛 𝐸𝑐
Theoretical Limit for Unipolar Devices
•  Specific on-resistance:

Fundamental trade-off between blocking voltage and conduction losses

Unipolar vs Bipolar Devices
• Unipolar devices: only one carrier type used for conduction, usually electrons
• Also called Majority Carrier Devices
• Examples: Schottky diode, MOSFET, JFET

• Bipolar devices: both holes and electrons contribute to conduction

• Also called Minority Carrier Devices
• Examples: IGBT, BJT, Thyristor, GTO
• It is possible to exceed the unipolar limit (conductivity modulation)
• Price to pay is slower switching speed  increased switching losses
Example 1: Reverse recovery of Si pin diode
vs SiC Schottky diode

The reverse current in Schottky diode is due to device depletion capacitance

rather than charge storage due to conductivity modulation  largely
temperature independent and forward current level independent
Example 2: IGBT Current Tail at Turn-off

Current tail under inductive switching (circled blue trace)

Power Device Construction Different from
Signal Electronics ICs
• Most power devices are vertical
• Modern devices use many small cells to
improve controllability
• The thick drift region needed to block
large voltages does not cause increase of
cross-sectional area (vertical direction)
• Electrodes with high voltage across are
on opposite sides of wafer, easy to
ensure creepage and clearance spacing
Silicon Carbide
Target applications for SiC
Silicon Carbide Material
• SiC exists in a variety of polymorphic crystalline structures called
polytypes e.g., 3C-SiC, 6H-SiC, 4H-SiC
• Presently 4H-SiC is generally preferred in practical power device
manufacturing
• Single-crystal 4H-SiC wafers of 3 inches to 6 inches in diameter are
commercially available

• Silicon carbide is also the substrate of choice for hetero-epitaxy of

AlGaN device structures due to its relatively close lattice match to GaN.
SiC Material Challenges
• Bulk material problems
• Low growth rate
• Control over defects: wafer quality is still poor compared to Si
• High cost

• Epitaxial layer growth

• Low growth rate
• Defects introduced in the epitaxial growth process

• SiC material growth requires specialized equipment and processes not needed for Si
• MOCVD, reactive ion etching (RIE), ion implantation with high temperature annealing to
reduce lattice damage
Next Material Challenge
Development of high quality thick films at high growth rates, with low
defect density, suitable for producing HV power devices ≥ 3kV.

My colleague Prof. Tangali Sudarshan is a world expert in SiC material.

He taught a lecture series on SiC material research at IIT Kharagpur and
then visited for an extended period of time.
Timeline SiC
State-of-the-art in Silicon • Three axes:
voltage, current and
frequency
• MOSFETs and Schottky
diodes for high frequency
• IGBTs and BJTs for
moderate frequencies
• GTOs and Thyristors for
low frequencies
(sometimes not fully
controllable)
Available Devices in Si and SiC
• In Si • In SiC
• Schottky diodes up to 150V • Schottky diodes 600V – 1.7kV

• MOSFETs up to 600 – 900V • MOSFETs 600V – 1.7kV

(including superjunction MOSFETs) Low production runs at 10kV

• IGBTs 600V – 1200V, up to 6.5kV • No commercial IGBT

Cree demonstrated an IGBT
blocking 27kV with a low leakage
current of 1µA
In SiC you can have unipolar high-switching-speed devices at much larger blocking
voltages and bipolar devices at blocking voltages not reachable with Si
SiC Schottky Barrier Diode
SiC Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBD)
• The first SiC device introduced – a unipolar majority carrier device
• Used with Si MOSFET or IGBT in switching converters
• Can be co-packaged with Si IGBT to provide reverse conducting
capability (cheaper than an all-SiC solution with SiC MOSFETs)
Available diodes in Si and SiC
Forward Characteristics of SiC SBD
• Similar threshold voltage as Si pin diodes, i.e., a little less than 1V
• Threshold voltage is determined by Schottky barrier height
Temperature Stability of Forward
Characteristic
The forward voltage of a high
voltage [1200V] SiC SBD increases
less than 2X when the temperature
increases from 25°C to 225°C

Unlike Si pin diodes, the forward voltage drop increases with

temperature (positive temperature coefficient)
Ease of paralleling
Reverse Recovery Characteristics of Si Fast
Recovery Diodes (FRD)
• Si fast P-N junction diodes have high transient current at the moment
the junction voltage switches from the forward to the reverse
direction, resulting in significant switching loss.
• This is due to minority carriers stored in the drift layer during
conduction phase when forward voltage is applied.
• The higher the forward current (or temperature), the longer the
recovery time and the larger the recovery current.
Reverse Recovery Characteristics of SiC-
SBD
• In contrast, since SiC-SBDs are majority carrier (unipolar) devices that use no
minority carriers for electrical conduction, they do not store minority
carriers.
• The reverse recovery current in SiC SBDs is only due to discharge junction
capacitance.
• Thus the switching loss is substantially lower compared to that in Si P-N
diodes.
• The transient current is nearly independent of temperatures and forward
currents, and thereby achieves stable fast recovery in any environment.
• This also means SiC-SBDs generate less EMI noise from the recovery current.
600V 10A switching
600V 10A switching
Active PFC Application

Conventional active PFC requires a snubber circuit to mitigate EMI emissions, not
needed or much smaller with SiC Schottky
Great improvement over Si p-i-n diodes for PFC and other applications. No reverse
recovery means reduced switching losses and reduced EMI
SiC MOSFET
IGBT (I)
• The device of choice in Si for high voltage high current applications
• It has supplanted the Si BJT at higher voltages because it is voltage-
controlled through an isolated gate rather than current-controlled
through the base
• No need for complicated proportional base drive
IGBT (II)
• Low resistance at high breakdown voltage is achieved at the cost of
switching performance
• High voltage devices need a low-doped drift region to support the
blocking voltage when off
• During conduction minority carriers are injected into the drift region
reducing its resistance
• This slows down turn-off, because minority carriers must be either
removed or recombine before the IGBT can turn off
• IGBT has higher switching losses than majority carrier MOSFET
SiC MOSFET Advantage
• Since in SiC critical electric field is approximately 10X the value in Si
• For the same blocking voltage
• Doping can be increased 100X
• Drift region thickness can be reduced 10X
• In practice a 300X improvement in specific on-resistance is possible
• SiC MOSFET is unipolar device and has fast switching speed
• SiC MOSFET can operate at high temperature due to wide bandgap
• In conclusion SiC MOSFET can combine the four desirable characteristics of power switch: 1) high
voltage, 2) low on-resistance 3) fast switching speed 4) high temperature operation

We will discuss this in detail when we talk about semiconductor

physics and we introduce the Baliga FOM (figure of merit)
 Available active devices in Si and SiC
In SiC typically Unipolar devices < 10kV Bipolar devices >10kV
Characteristics of SiC MOSFETs
• Fast switching, high switching frequency operation possible
• Low RDS-on, low conduction losses
• Body diode is bipolar, but has fast reverse recovery with low switching
loss
• Small transconductance requires higher gate-source voltage when on
Specific Resistance Advantage with Respect
to Si MOSFET
• A SiC MOSFET can have much smaller drift region with higher doping
compared to Si MOSFET
• For example, 900V SiC-MOSFET can provide the same on-resistance as
Si-MOSFETs and Si super junction MOSFETs with a chip size 35 times
and 10 times respectively smaller.
• Smaller chip size reduces gate charge Qg and capacitance, improving
switching performance.
Specific Resistance Comparison
Forward Characteristic Comparison

• IGBT has threshold voltage, larger losses at light load

• Si MOSFET resistance increases significantly with temperature
Gate Voltage VGS and RDS-on

• SiC has lower mobility and the gate oxide has quality problems, so a
higher gate voltage is needed to fully turn on MOSFET
Gate Drive
• Gate drive voltage to 18V recommended (10 – 15V sufficient for Si)
• Using 13V or less can cause thermal runaway
• For high speed switching -5V to 18V gate voltage recommended
Switching Characteristics of
SiC MOSFET
Inductive Switching Double Pulse Circuit

Si-IGBT + FRD vs SiC MOSFET + SBD

Turn On

• Turn on switching speed of Si-IGBT and SiC-MOSFET comparable 100s ns

• Si-FRD and Si-MOSFET body diode have very large reverse recovery currents
Turn Off

• Si-IGBT has long current tail

• Switching is slow and switching loss is high
Comments
• Slow turn-off of Si-IGBT causes large switching loss
• SiC-SBD has no reverse recovery
• SiC-MOSFET body diode has fast reverse recovery (small minority
carrier lifetime) but larger Vf

• Eoff 90% smaller allows operation at switching frequencies 50-

100kHz, whereas Si-IGBT limited to 20kHz or less
• Size of passives and/or cooling can be reduced
Gate Drive Circuits

• The off-on gate voltage swing is nominally 0 to 18V. If high noise tolerance and
fast switching are required, negative voltage of approximately -3 to -5V can also
be used.
Forward Characteristics of Body Diode and
Reverse Conduction
• SiC-MOSFET body diode has high threshold voltage (3V) and high
forward drop (Vf) due to the wide bandgap
• If connecting external SiC SBD to improve switching performance, no
need for series diode to prevent body diode conduction
• Series diode typically needed for Si-MOSFET
• The high Vf loss can be almost eliminated by using SiC-MOSFET as
synchronous rectifier
• Higher loss only during dead time
Reverse Recovery Characteristics of Body
Diode

• The body diode of SiC-MOSFET is a P-N junction diode with short minority carrier lifetime.
• The recovery current is mainly to discharge junction capacitance. Its recovery
performance is equivalent to that of a discrete SiC SBD.
Issues to Discuss Later
• Short circuit protection
• Reliability
Conclusions
• Great potential of SiC devices
• Can use unipolar devices up to 10kV and bipolar to 27kV and above
• Still manufacturing problems remain
• Defects cause poor reverse blocking performance and deterioration over time
• Besides crystal quality problems, there are problems in the interface of silicon
dioxide with SiC (the gate oxide), causing problems with gate-insulated
devices (MOSFETs and IGBTs)
Gallium Nitride
 GaN offers higher efficiency at higher switching frequencies than conventional silicon or silicon carbide for specific
applications
Low voltage (<650V), high switching frequency
GaN Material
• Only recently GaN substrates are becoming available – problems with
cost and maturity
• GaN are usually manufactured on substrates of different materials
• Si. Cheap, but significant lattice mismatch causes defect problems
• SiC. Much better lattice match to GaN, high thermal conductivity, but
EXPENSIVE
• Sapphire (Al2O3). Used for optoelectronics applications. Not very appropriate
for power electronics, because it is a poor thermal conductor
• Heteroepitaxy on different substrates causes defects and material
quality issues.
GaN-on-Si
• Must deal with lattice mismatch – buffer layers added
• The fabrication employs mostly standard Si processes, so standard
equipment can be used, reducing cost
• GaN is reaching cost parity with Si
GaN Devices are Lateral

Vertical device drift layer thickness can be

tailored for a certain blocking voltage with
Lateral devices have system integration advantages, but require
no corresponding device area increase
impractically large areas for high blocking voltage capability
• Lateral devices with high blocking voltage capability have large areas due to the required large
gate-drain spacing
• For surface stability, large separation between high and low voltage electrodes results in larger
cell pitch and higher Ron
Lateral GaN devices probably limited to 650V or so
Vertical GaN?
• GaN has larger bandgap than SiC
• If vertical devices could be built, it could be used for high voltage
devices like SiC
• A conductive GaN substrate would probably be the optimal choice for
vertical devices
• Unclear whether 2DEG could be used in vertical devices
• A lot of research activity in this area
Timeline GaN
• At the heterojunction GaN / AlGaN a 2-dimensional electron gas forms (2DEG)
• The 2DEG can be controlled from the gate
High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT)
• 2DEG: increase in mobility at heterojunction exploited in HEMT
• 2DEG: at an heterojunction an extremely thin layer of carriers
(100Angstrom=10nm) with extremely high mobility forms. The reason
is that carriers are trapped in a potential well at the heterojunction,
but there is no high doping associated. The high doping would cause
impurity scattering, which reduces mobility. This is avoided in HEMTs,
leading to high mobility
Enhancement vs Depletion mode HEMT

• Two types:
• Enhancement (normally off)
• Depletion (normally on)
• Power electronics designers do not like normally on devices, because at start-up or when something goes
wrong, the device may turn on, causing shorts
• Most vendors offer normally off devices
• Some use the cascode configuration
Cascode Configuration
Other Applications of GaN
Note that GaN has other applications besides power electronics
• Optoelectronics: LED, photodetectors. Blue LEDs, white LEDs, deep
UV photodetectors
• RF applications: HEMT are extremely fast switching devices and can
be used for RF

This means that investment for the development of GaN is much larger
that for SiC, which is used mainly for power electronics
Characteristics
Similar to Si-MOSFET Differences
• True E-mode, normally off • Lateral device
• Voltage driven – gate drive • Gate not isolated (diode
charges and discharges the input contact), but MOSHFET exists,
capacitance Khan
• Easy slew rate control by gate • Different gate voltage limits
resistance RG (-5V/+6V)
• “Majority” diode. In reality third
quadrant operation
Gate Drive
•• No
  body diode, but 2DEG can conduct in 3rd quadrant – no need for anti-parallel diode
• When gate is off (during dead time) 2DEG behaves like a diode with
Characteristics
• On resistance
• RDS-on similar to MOSFET
• 4-5V gate-source bias
• Positive temperature coefficient (good for //) but smaller than Si
GaN 1.45 Si 1.7  for 25°C – 125°C
• Gate threshold 1.6V < Si good and bad  noise immunity, need low
impedance gate-source driver and circuit
• Capacitance CGD small (lateral) CGS not so small  fast, 100’s volts in
nanoseconds, multi MHz operation
• Body diode  third quadrant operation, no reverse recovery, but capacitance
Wide Bandgap Device
Drivers and Inhibitors
Drivers of Wide Bandgap Devices
• Lower switching losses
• Higher switching frequencies
• Higher operating temperatures
• Enables smaller systems: size, weight and cost reduction
• Robust, reliable, radiation hard
• High breakdown voltage (SiC)
• GaN prices nearer to Si
• GaN has no body diode
• Device integration on Si (GaN)
“Market Forecasts for SiC and GaN Power Semiconductors,” IHS Markit, 2018
Inhibitors of Wide Bandgap Devices
• High SiC material cost
• Design inertia: the reluctance to change
• Not drop-in swap for Si
• Normally off switches preferred
• Proof of reliability
• High-temperature high-frequency packaging
• Availability: few 2nd sources
• GaN defects
• Gan-on-Si material mismatch
“Market Forecasts for SiC and GaN Power Semiconductors,” IHS Markit, 2018
References
1. Silicon Carbide Schottky Barrier Diodes, White Paper, Rohm
Semiconductor
2. SiC Power Devices and Modules, Application Note, Rohm
Semiconductor