1200V/200A FREEDM-pair: Loss and cost reduction analysis

Abstract

FREEDM-Pair is an innovative power semiconductor switch which reduces the loss and cost through the hybrid integration of a Si IGBT and a SiC MOSFET. During the turn-off of the FREEDM-Pair, the Si IGBT is turned off first under ZVS condition and after a carefully selected delay time, the Si MOSFET is turn-off. In this way, the IGBT's turn-off loss is significantly reduced due to the ZVS turn-off condition. During the delay time, the current will be carried by the MOSFET only. During the turn-on, the SiC MOSFET and the IGBT can be turned on at the same time. Due to faster turn-on speed of the MOSFET, the IGBT is also turned on under the ZVS condition. Another advantage of the FREEDM-Pair is the better conduction characteristics compared to the Si IGBT by combining both the unipolar and bipolar devices' advantages in current conduction. Therefore the FREEDM-Pair provides an ideal option to realize the tradeoff between the cost and performance, and can be applied to main stream applications which currently use IGBT. Previously, the 6.5-kV FREEDM-Pairs results have been published and analyzed. In this paper, loss and cost reduction of a 1200V/200A FREEDM-Pair is presented and analyzed for the first time.