Evaluation of the Static Voltage Distribution within Super-Cascode Power Modules

Abstract:
The super-cascode architecture constitutes an attractive topology to achieve medium-voltage power modules with cost-effective, low-voltage semiconductors. To achieve a proper static and dynamic voltage distribution for the low-voltage semiconductors, balancing capacitors are typically introduced in the architecture to synchronize the switching transitions and establish the steady state voltage distribution. This paper presents an improved methodology for determining the values of these balancing capacitors and evaluates their influence on the static voltage distribution. The advantages of the proposed method are experimentally demonstrated using a super-cascode power module through a series of double pulse tests.