Event-Triggered Gate Drive for a 1.7 kV Si-SiC Hybrid Switch with IGBT-like Short-Circuit Robustness

A novel event-triggered gate drive for a Si-SiC hybrid switch is proposed and validated with measurements. The hybrid switch consists of paralleled Si-IGBT and SiC-MOSFET and requires a dedicated gate drive strategy to efficiently combine both semiconductor technologies. The proposed gate driver provides zero-voltage switching for the SiC MOSFET for decreased switching losses. By driving both switches out of only one external gate signal, it allows the usage of a standard power module housing for a hybrid switch. Triggering the turn-on of the SiC-MOSFET only at low V
CE
, the gate driver ensures an IGBT-like short-circuit behavior of the hybrid switch. Therefore a non-robust SiC MOSFET with reduced R
ds,on
can be used.