A discretized proportional base driver for Silicon Carbide Bipolar Junction Transistors

Silicon Carbide Bipolar Junction Transistors require a continuous base current in the on-state. This base current is usually made constant and is corresponding to the maximum collector current and maximum junction temperature that is foreseen in a certain application. In this paper, a discretized pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tolstoy, Georg, Peftitsis, Dimosthenis, Rabkowski, Jacek, Nee, Hans-Peter, Palmer, Patrick R.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Base Driver
Bipolar Junction Transistor
BJT
Discretized Base Driver
Driver
Drives
Indexes
Proportional Base driver
Proportional Driver
SiC
Silicon Carbide
SRA - Energi
SRA - Energy
Switches
Vehicles
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Summary:Silicon Carbide Bipolar Junction Transistors require a continuous base current in the on-state. This base current is usually made constant and is corresponding to the maximum collector current and maximum junction temperature that is foreseen in a certain application. In this paper, a discretized proportional base driver is proposed which will reduce, for the right application, the steady-state power consumption of the base driver. The operation of the proposed base driver has been verified experimentally, driving a 1200V/40A SiC BJT in a DC-DC boost converter. In order to determine the potential reduction of the power consumption of the base driver, a case with a dc-dc converter in an ideal electric vehicle driving the new European drive cycle has been investigated. It is found that the steady-state power consumption of the base driver can be reduced by approximately 63%. The total reduction of the driver consumption is 2816 J during the drive cycle, which is slightly more than the total on-state losses for the SiC BJTs used in the converter.
DOI:10.1109/ECCE-Asia.2013.6579182