The Isolated SiC Driver Board Released by SemiSouth

Published:2011/10/20 22:01:00 Author:Li xiao na From:SeekIC

Based on the silicon carbide (SiC), the SemiSouth is a semiconductor company. It is specialized in producing SiC materials and electrical components which can be used for the high-power, high-efficiency, harsh-environment power management and conversion applications. The applications of the components can range from the power conversion, to variable-speed drives, to high-power, harsh environment military and aerospace applications.

When compared with the other products which are basd on the silicon, GaAs and other materials, the SiC-based semiconductor devices have the outstanding advantages. The performance and characteristics of SiC power transistors make it suitable to replace up to 10 conventional solid-state devices. Moreover, the Sic-based semiconductors allow their customers to develop the innovative and competitive products, because it is able to improve the performance in technical applications.

The isolated driver board is released by the SemiSouth, which is applied for half-bridge power modules built from its vertical-trench junction field-effect transistors. The driver is called SGDR2500P2. The Microsemi’s 1.2kV, 100A APTJC120AM13VCT1AG is the aim of this component, but it also can be used by the other projects that include enhancement-mode VJEFTs as an evaluation board. Eight SemiSouth SJEC120R050 VJFETs are used by Microsemi part in two sets of four parallel devices.

The voltage of 0V and 10V can not feed the enhancement-mode VJFETs to turn off and on; therefore, a more complex wave form is needed to make best use of the technology. The SemiSouth gate driver uses a dual-stage drive scheme. There are two stages of the SemiSouh gate driver: one is a a brief (~100ns) +15V pulse which pumps charge into the SiC device’s input capacitance to turn it on; second is the long lower-current signal, giving a voltage of 2.5-3V depending on temperature, which holds the device in a minimum RDSon conductive state. When it comes to turn off, it uses -15V to quickly remove charge from the input capacitance.

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