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Technical Lecture

Power Silicon MOSFETs, BJTs, IGBTs, etc.

T35.1 - IGBT Comparison for Optimized Switching Behavior in the SiC/Si-Hybrid Switch

Thursday, March 20, 2025
10:10 AM – 10:30 AM ET
Location: Level Three, A315
Connecting Si-IGBTs and SiC-MOSFETs in parallel, thus forming a hybrid switch, offers additional degrees of freedom to optimize the efficiency of bridge-type converters. For an improved switching performance closer to that of the superior MOSFET, typically a delay is introduced between the gate signals of the IGBT and of the MOSFET. The optimal switching strategy depends on the operating point (temperature, current) and the hybrid switch design (chip area ratio, gate resistance), as published elsewhere, but also on the selection of the IGBT. The proposed paper shows that the type of IGBT used also has a strong influence on the system efficiency resulting most importantly from its forward characteristics and its turn-OFF performance. Different established and state-of-the-art IGBTs are compared regarding their switching performance in the hybrid switch by means of extensive double pulse measurement. Furthermore, aspects for optimum operating conditions of hybrid switches are discussed. It is shown that an improved IGBT selection can yield a switching loss reduction of at least 30% when comparing at an optimal control and more than 60% when comparing to non-optimized switching.