News

Eval Board for New 4-Pin SiC MOSFETs with Up To 35% Lower Switching Losses

October 08, 2019 by Paul Shepard

ROHM Semiconductor today announced the availability of six new trench gate structure silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs (650V/1200V), the SCT3xxx xR series, optimized for server power supplies, UPS systems, solar power inverters, and EV charging stations requiring high efficiency. ROHM also announced a SiC MOSFET evaluation board, the P02SCT3040KR-EVK-001 (pictured above), equipped with gate driver ICs (BM6101FV-C) along with multiple power supply ICs and discrete components optimized for SiC device drive.

Compatibility with both the TO-247-4L and TO-247N package types enable evaluation of both packages under the same conditions. The board can be used for double pulse testing as well as the evaluation of components in boost circuits, 2-level inverters and synchronous rectification buck circuits.

The new SCT3xxx xR series utilizes a 4-pin package (TO-247-4L) that maximizes switching performance, making it possible to reduce switching loss by up to 35% over conventional 3-pin package types (TO-247N). This contributes to lower power consumption in a variety of applications.

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In recent years, the growing needs for cloud services due to the proliferation of AI and IoT has increased the demand for data centers worldwide. But for servers used in data centers, one major challenge is how to reduce power consumption as capacity and performance increase. At the same time, SiC devices are attracting attention due to their smaller loss over mainstream silicon devices in the power conversion circuits of servers.

Furthermore, as the TO-247-4L package enables to reduce switching loss over conventional packages, it is expected to be adopted in high output applications such as servers, base stations, and solar power generation.

This new series of SiC MOSFETs and the evaluation board are now available for purchase.

Price: Starting from $10.15/unit (1,000pcs) for the SiC MOSFETs.

Key Advantages

4-Pin package (TO-247-4L) reduces switching loss by up to 35%

With conventional 3-pin packages (TO-247N), the effective gate voltage at the chip reduces due to the voltage dropped across the parasitic inductance of the source terminal. This causes the switching speed to reduce. Adopting the 4-pin TO-247-4L package separates the driver and power source pins, minimizing the effects of the parasitic inductance component. This makes it possible to maximize the switching speed of SiC MOSFETs, reducing total switching loss (turn ON and turn OFF) by up to 35% over conventional package.

Lineup

The SCT3xxx xR series consists of SiC MOSFETs utilizing a trench gate structure. Six models are offered, featuring a breakdown voltage of either 650V (3 products) or 1200V (3 products).

(click on table to enlarge)