Cosmic radiation ruggedness of Si and SiC power semiconductors

Abstract

A measurement campaign to investigate the robustness of ten power semiconductor devices (Si as well as SiC) with voltage ratings between 650 V and 1.7 kV was conducted. Three of the tested devices were previously tested by other researchers. This allowed the results to be compared in order to show that the measurements can be reproduced. The results of the measurements show that the tested SiC MOSFETs are significantly more robust than Si MOSFETs and IGBTs. Further analysis of the results has shown that part of the robustness of the SiC devices is related to their high breakdown voltage. Yet, even if devices are compared and the breakdown voltage difference is taken into account the high robustness of most of the SiC devices remains visible.