Application of silicon carbide (SiC) power devices: Opportunities, challenges and potential solutions

Wide-bandgap (WBG) power devices such as SiC devices can operate at higher switching speed, higher voltage and higher temperature. While the opportunities in performance improvement with WBG devices are clear, there are significant design challenges. For example, the fast switching speed and high dv/dt can cause increased level of electro-magnetic interference (EMI), current overshoot and cross-talk effect through parasitic elements of the circuit. This paper will review the opportunities and challenges in the application of SiC devices and present several potential solutions aiming to fully exploit the supervisor characteristics of these devices while attenuating their side-effects.