The benefits and current progress of SiC SGTOs for pulsed power applications

Silicon Carbide (SiC) is an extremely attractive material for semiconductor power devices because of its electrical and physical characteristics. This paper describes the benefits of utilizing SiC Super Gate Turn-Off thyristors (SGTO) in pulsed power applications, reviews the current progress and development of SiC GTOs, and presents the static and pulsed characteristics of large area GTOs with high blocking capabilities. The wide pulsed evaluation of the 0.5 cm2 SiC SGTOs has been demonstrated and reported by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). This paper presents the wide pulsed capabilities of the 1 cm2 SiC SGTOs. The 1 cm2 SiC SGTO devices handled up to twice the peak current of the 0.5 cm2 SiC SGTOs at a 1 ms pulse width. The wide pulsed evaluation of these devices was demonstrated at ARL. ARL evaluated the static and pulsed characteristics of six of these devices. The devices had a forward blocking voltage rating of 9 kV and a trigger requirement of a negative pulse of 1 A to the gate for a millisecond pulse width. These devices were pulsed as high as 3.5 kA at 1 ms, equating to an action rate of 6 × 103 A2 s and a current density of 4.8 kA/cm2, based on the device active area. The narrow pulsed evaluation of this device has been demonstrated by Cree Inc. A peak current of 12.8 kA with a pulse width of 17 μs (corresponding to 12.8 kA/cm2 based on the chip size) was conducted with this device.