Gate-Driver Integrated Junction Temperature Estimation of SiC MOSFET Modules

Abstract

SiC MOSFET power modules are becoming global solution in environment harsh systems. Achieving reliability of such systems is of upmost importance due to large economic implications. Thereby, focus of this paper is ultimately improving the reliability of the SiC MOSFETS by bringing intelligence on the gate-driver (GD) with providing insight on real-time behaviour of relevant switch information. Device switch-current I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">d</sub> , apart from being used for short-circuit detection assessing the short-term reliability, in the combination with the on-state drain-to-source V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ds,on</sub> enables possibility for the online junction temperature (T <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">J</sub> ) estimation. The knowledge of T <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">J</sub> can enable active thermal control and condition monitoring of the SiC MOSFET device such as state-of-health, remaining useful life, maintenance scheduling, etc. tackling the long-term reliability aspect. The T <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">J</sub> model is obtained through calibration procedure, and stored in the FLASH memory located on the GD. With the aid of FPGA, developed look-up table is assessed, enabling real-time junction temperature monitoring for both devices in the commercial SiC MOSFET half-bridge module configuration.