Switching characteristics of low inductance SiC module with integrated capacitors for aircraft applications

Abstract:
Future aircrafts will be composed of high number of power converters having always higher power density and efficiency. In order to increase performance of such converters, a good option is the use of SiC transistors. Although these components reduce losses when compared to their silicon-based counterpart, they increase switching speed and over-shoot during commutation, which can cause serious Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) issues and overvoltages on loads connected to these converters. For that reason, power module containing SiC transistors must have the lowest possible parasitic inductance. This paper presents a multilevel low-inductance SiC power module designed to optimize a three-phase 540V/15kVA inverter for modern aircrafts. Precise dynamic characterization is performed in order to accurately determine switching energies and to show improvement of loss performance of this power module when compared to discrete components and also to power modules from the market.