Statistics-based Switching Loss Characterization of Power Semiconductor Device

Abstract

Switching loss and conductive characterizations of power semiconductors are becoming more and more crucial for the reliability evaluation and improvement of power electronics system. The widely used double-pulse testing method to extract the switching loss of power device has limits to satisfy the requirements for the reliability analysis. In this paper, a novel method to reveal the distribution information of switching loss and on-state voltage drop is proposed, which is based on a H-bridge testing circuit as well as the statistical analysis for cyclic testing scheme of multiple samples under test. By the proposed approaches, multiple IGBTs and freewheeling diodes under test can be circularly and precisely characterized under various switching conditions, and the Probability Density Function (PDF) for switching loss energy of devices can be generated.