Silicon carbide power converters for next generation aerospace electronics applications

Abstract

New material technologies such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) are promising in the development of compact high-power converters for next generation aerospace power electronics applications. This paper presents an optimized converter design approach that takes into consideration non-linear interactions among various converter components, source and load. A 50% improvement in converter power density is calculated for a 100 V-2 kV, 7 kW SiC DC-DC power converter operating at 150/spl deg/C as compared to a silicon power converter. Experimental results of hard- and soft-switched SiC power converters using commercial Schottky and PiN diodes and JFET's are reported at lower power levels.