Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a promising new material for high power high temperature electronics applications. SiC Schottky diodes are already finding wide acceptance in designing high efficiency power electronic systems.Design of efficient Silicon Carbide based power systems requires a thorough knowledge of the physics of operation of SiC power devices, their thermal behavior, and calibrated compact models that can be included in industry standard simulation tools such as SPICE and MATLAB Simulink. Unique aspects of 4H-SiC based devices such as interface trap states, incomplete ionization, transition region, surface roughness and Coulomb scattering mobility need to be understood and incorporated in the device models to carry out accurate modeling and simulation.
Our SiC Power Electronics Virtual Design Platform enables modeling and simulation of SiC devices and circuits using a multi-tiered approach. We first link experiment to physics based TCAD models. We then use those models to create behavioral models for SiC devices. Finally these models are used in circuit and system simulations. This platform will provide a very crucial and economically indispensable link between SiC power device manufacturers (CREE, SemiSouth, Infineon, etc.) and commercial (GM, Ford, etc.) and military (General Atomics, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc) power electronics system manufacturers. In the energy industry, where power and efficiency are of utmost importance, and cost of product is many times dictated by design and experimental testing, extensive use of CAD tools in design of new power electronics will not only reduce development cost, but will also significantly reduce time-to-market for Silicon Carbide based electronics.
The NSF SBIR Phase I #0912683 titled "Development of Silicon Carbide Power Device and Circuit CAD Tools and Prototyping of SiC Based Power Converters for Hybrid Vehicles and Power Electronic Applications" enabled us to initiate the development of this Virtual Design Platform. We developed CAD tools for SiC power DMOSFET and IGBT device design, mixed-mode and SPICE based CAD tools for power converter circuits, and used them to demonstrate the viability of SiC power converters by building a prototype power converter system using SiC power devices.
In Phase II of this program we plan to transform the software platform into a beta version of a computer aided design tool which provides the capability of first pass SiC power module design. The platform will enable comprehensive design which self-consistently employs physics-based behavioral descriptions, thermal management and electromagnetic effects. This will enable vertically integrated and predictive system design from the device to the module levels. The enabling platform will then be used to create customer specific prototypes for key high-performance SiC power systems.
Our partner iMPower Systems Inc. and collaborators Cree Inc., General Atomics Inc., and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory will be assisting in the design of this software tool, and will also act as test sites for the beta version. Anticipated date for the beta version release is mid-2011. We anticipate to have the software ready for eventual release in 2012.
