Partial Discharge Behaviour Evaluation on MOSFET Employed in Automotive Applications

This paper is focused on the measurement of partial discharges in the Silicon Carbide MOSFET. The latter represents a recent developed power electronics device, which has improved characteristics compared to the traditional Silicon MOSFET. The new technology has been conceived in order to satisfy the new market needs. With the ever-increasing development of the electric mobility sector, the need for ever more performing electronic power devices grows. The main features provided by the Silicon Carbide device were found in literature and concern a great thermal conductivity, wide bandgap, high power and high working temperature. However, considering the high voltage at which these devices work, also taking into account their small geometric dimensions, it is essential to evaluate the behavior from the partial discharges point of view. Based on the above, the aim of the present work is the measurement of partial discharges in ten different Silicon Carbide MOSFET devices in order to evaluate the electrical performances of the new proposed material as well as the quality of their manufacturing process. Experimental tests have been carried out by taking into account the Standard CEI EN 60270 for the realization of the measurement setup and the Standard CEI EN 61287 for the measurement procedure. In particular, the latter Standard provides the guidelines for the applied voltage waveform. Measurement results showed that no partial discharge phenomena occur in all the specimens under tests. Therefore, the SiC MOSFET passed the partial discharge test successfully.