Thermal Dissipation Approach Comparison and Evaluation for SiC Surface Mount Devices

Surface-mount packages offer Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFETs with many advantages, including highly reduced parasitic inductance, smaller size, and reduced manufacturing cost. However, in high power applications, the thermal performance of the discrete surface-mount device (SMD) is concerning compared to through-hole counterparts. This paper seeks to evaluate various surface mount cooling approaches. Topside heat sink, thermal via, metal core printed circuit board (MC PCB), and aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic inlay approaches are considered and evaluated in detail based on introduced thermal resistance and heat dissipation capacity. Mathematical analysis, and experimental verifications are provided to support the conclusion.