Investigation of avalanche ruggedness of 650 V Schottky-barrier rectifiers

Avalanche breakdown of novel 650 V SiC Schottky-barrier rectifiers is investigated. The rectifier diode has low leakage current for the temperatures up to 300 °C. Thermal coefficient of avalanche breakdown increases with the temperature to around 0.009%/K at 200 °C. Near-uniform avalanche breakdown is verified using emission imaging, and maximum specific avalanche energy of 20.7 J/cm2 is achieved. The critical temperature for stability in unclamped inductive switching (UIS) is above 520 °C as estimated through thermal simulation. Long-term walkout of breakdown voltage at 176 °C is less than 0.02%.