What makes CoolSiC™ market’s best available choice?

Cost-effectively reaching top efficiency / density areas

Infineon’s latest addition to its SiC portfolio, the CoolSiC™ MOSFET 650 V family, is the product of a state-of-the-art trench semiconductor process, optimized to allow no compromises in achieving both - the lowest losses in the application and the highest reliability in operation. While leveraging the strong material characteristics of silicon carbide, Infineon’s experts managed to add unique features that increase the device performance, robustness, and ease of use.

When comparing the newly launched CoolSiC™ trench MOSFET 650 V portfolio with the few alternatives currently available on the market, engineers will find convincing reasons for choosing Infineon as their supplier:
 

Explaining the value created to customers is simple: the new portfolio represents an easy (integration, design-in, use) and cost-effective way to reach top efficiency / density levels (i.e. in SMPS > 97% / > 35 W/inch³) when one would rather expect increasing system complexity.

The mentioned trench concept ensures product optimization, fully leveraging the strong material properties of silicon carbide. Engineers will achieve top performance with compact and reliable systems. With Infineon’s CoolSiC™ technology systems are constructed with fewer components and with reduced magnetics/heat sinks. Consequently, they become simpler, smaller, and cost less.

CoolSiC™ trench MOSFETs 650 V in applications

Target application: Server / Datacenter (>1600 W SMPS)
Trend to high-power servers and growing hyperscalers. Energy efficiency and saving energy costs is key!
WBG usage in topologies with repetitive hard commutation (e.g., CCM totem-pole PFC) -> BOM savings for highest efficiency
Why CoolSiC™ MOSFETs 650 V?

• Reliability
• Energy efficiency -> TCO
• Power density
• Design simplification
   

Target application: Telecom (>2000 W SMPS)
Trend to deploy 5G and install even higher power systems.
Better soft-switching (e.g., half-bridge LLC), where WBG leads to higher efficiency combined with high frequencies
Main use cases: 5G small cells (outdoor), base band units, edge computing
Why CoolSiC™ MOSFETs 650 V?

• Reliability – particularly in harsh environment operation
• Energy efficiency ->TCO
• Power density
• Design simplification
   

Target application: Industrial SMPS (>1600 W SMPS)
More conservative but steady adoption of new technologies.
Why CoolSiC™ MOSFETs 650 V?

• More device robustness -> more reliability
• Power density
• Suitability for high-temperature operation
   

Infineon’s new CoolSiC™ MOSFET 650 V offering is furthermore very well suited for many other applications. Those include for example solar, energy storage systems, and UPS.

Reliability: High-performance CoolSiC™ MOSFET technology with silicon-like reliability

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The performance potential of SiC is indisputable. The key challenge to be mastered is to determine which design approach achieves the biggest success in which applications. It is essential to find the right balance between the primary performance indicators like resistance and switching losses and the additional aspects relevant for actual power electronics designs - one of them being sufficient reliability. This balance might vary for different applications. Thus, a suitable device concept should enable to a certain extent design freedom in order to adapt to the needs of various mission profiles without significant changes in processing and layout.

Performance is key and CoolSiC™ lives up to it by delivering superior conduction and switching efficiency. But, besides performance, some technological features characterizing the CoolSiC™ trench MOSFET 650 V family differentiate them from competition.

• Gate-oxide reliability (trench technology allows reaching performance without violating gate-oxide safe conditions)
• Robustness against parasitic turn-on
• Robust body diode
• Wide V_GS range for ease of use
• Robustness linked features like the short-circuit capability and the thermal conductivity -> suitability for high-temperature operations with a low dependency of R_DS(on) with the temperature
   

Whitepaper - CoolSiC™‘s reliability

CoolSiC™ MOSFETs: a revolution for power conversion systems

The exceptional material properties of SiC enable the design of fast-switching unipolar devices as opposed to bipolar IGBT devices. What has been possible only in the low-voltage area (< 600 V) so far, becomes now also possible at higher voltages. That is what makes SiC transistors increasingly attractive for the use in power converters. Customers will not only benefit from highest efficiency, extended power density, higher switching frequencies, improved heat dissipation, and space savings – all the named benefits may, in turn, also lead to overall lower cost.

Whitepaper - CoolSiC™ in power converters

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SiC’s three times wider bandgap compared to silicon translates in a higher electric breakdown field strength – obviously, a direct correlation exists. Consequently, strong miniaturization of devices and significant improvements of figures of merit (FOM) for power switches can be realized.
In addition, the material’s thermal conductivity is outstandingly better than the one of silicon, what makes it as good as copper material.

CoolSiC™’s technology insights – Reduction of losses and enhancement of Si power devices (SJ MOSFET, IGBT)

Impressive switching behavior is what CoolSiC™ trench MOSFETs stand for thanks to fast switching. Switching losses drop by up to 80% even at the same EMC level compared to an IGBT being a bipolar device. In IGBTs especially the so-called “current-tail” during the turn-off event is known for creating switching losses and IGBTs cannot conduct in the reverse direction. The Q_rr in CoolSiC™ trench MOSFETs is low and - due to being unipolar - they offer ultrafast switching slopes (no tail current, less diode recovery, temperature independent switching losses). Furthermore, a decrease in recovery loss, E_on, and E_off are worth being mentioned.
When it comes to conduction losses - which are at typical rms-currents also lower compared to IGBTs - an ohmic behavior is characteristic. Paralleling reduces those losses.

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