Solving the Challenges
of Driving SiC MOSFETs with
New Packaging
Silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs offer tremendous
new characteristics and capabilities, but they also
present new challenges. ROHM semiconductor
devices allow engineers to take full advantage of
SiC MOSFETs while also overcoming the challenges
of driving them.
Transistors are sometimes thought
of as the building blocks of digital
electronics. The invention of the
semiconductor-based transistor,
replacing the vacuum tube for
electrical switching, enabled some
of humankind's greatest tech-
nology leaps.
The most common transistor type
in electronics is the metal oxide
semiconductor field-effect transistor
Figure 1: Semiconductor material comparisons (Silicon Carbide vs. Silicon vs. Gallium Nitride)
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expanding the Capabilities of moSFets
(MOSFET). These transistors take
advantage of semiconductor materials'
peculiar properties to allow small
electrical current signals to control
the switching of sometimes much
larger current signals. One type of
MOSFET is used as a switch in power
electronics circuits, and it is specially
optimized to withstand high voltages
and pass load current with minimal
energy loss.
A new extremely hard compound
semiconductor material, silicon
carbide, provides a number of
advantages over silicon for making
these power-switching MOSFETs.
SiC has 10x the breakdown electric
field strength, 3x the bandgap, and
enables a wider range of p- and
n-type control required for device
construction. SiC also has 3x the
thermal conductivity, meaning 3x
silicon's cooling capability.
