Silicon Carbide JFET
IJW120R070T1
Application considerations
Final Datasheet 4 Rev. 2.0, <2013-09-11>
1 Application considerations
1.1 Introduction
Wide bandgap semiconductors are very attractive as a basematerial for power devices due to low losses,
improved temperature capability and high thermal conductivity. Infineon’s silicon carbide schottky diodes have
been commercially available on the market for many years. The material and technology knowhow has been
used to create new active switches based on silicon carbide providing significant improvement in the value
proposition in comparison to known devices such as:
• Resistive forward characteristic in first and third quadrant
• Monolithic integrated body diode, in switching performance very close to SiC schottky barrier diodes
• Very fast and controllable switching transients
• Very low capacitances and gate charge
These benefits result in higher system efficiency, allow higher switching frequencies, increased power density
and reduced cooling efforts. Due to the normally-on JFET concept any reliability-relevant issues from gate
oxides on SiC are completely avoided. To allow the use of this normally-on concept in voltage-source-inverter
configurations we propose the following driver circuit.
1.2 Driver circuit
Being a normally-on device, the JFET is in its on-state at zero gate voltage and will go into the off-state at
negative gate voltage. The normally off behavior can be easily realized by implementing a cascode
configuration with a low voltage MOSFET as shown in Figure 1 (state of the art cascode). At e.g. startup, the LV
MOSFET is in the off-state pushing the source of the JFET to positive potential relative to its gate and keeping
the JFET hence in the off-state.
In this conventional cascode, the LV MOSFET will be switched on and off together with the JFET in each
switching cycle. This approach has two major drawbacks: firstly, at turn-on additional switching losses will occur
as the output capacitance of the LV MOSFET needs to be charged from the positive rail voltage, secondly the
combination allows no direct control of the JFET due to the absence of a (JFET) - Drain- to- (LV MOS) - Gate
capacitance. These drawbacks can be avoided with the proposed “direct drive” approach. Here, the JFET is
directly switched on and off by applying a negative gate voltage and 0V respectively, whereas the series
connected LV MOSFET is always in its on- state. The LV MOSFET is turned off only during start- up and e.g.
emergency cases such as loss of auxiliary power supply. This solution represents the best match between
performance and safety requirements. The driving scheme with a dedicated driver is shown in Fig. 2 (direct
drive technology with 1EDI30J12Cx).
Figure 1: state of the art cascode Figure 2: direct drive technology with 1EDI30J12Cx