Cosmic Ray Robustness: 2kV SiC-based B6 Topology vs Prominent Industrial Solutions for 1500V DCLinks

Abstract:
The trend of 1.5 kV DC-Links in renewable applications has been met with industrial solutions encompassing either multi-level topologies, or the classic two-level full-bridge featuring either semiconductor serialization, or deploying 2 kV-and-above semiconductors. These solutions arguably compromise mainly on complexity, cost, and reliability. Regarding the latter, due to the larger voltage stress that semiconductors block in the two-level variant, the exact trade-off among solutions regarding cosmic radiation robustness is not fully clear. Thus, in this paper an evaluation of these topologies regarding cosmic radiation robustness is performed considering the usage of devices using 1200 V and 2 kV blocking voltage classes.