<i>Dv/dt</i> Sensing-Based Short-Circuit Protection for Medium-Voltage SiC mosfets
Zhehui Guo, Hui Li
Abstract
This letter presents a novel short-circuit protection (SCP) for medium-voltage (MV) SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet</small> s, that utilizes the turn- <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dv/dt</i> of SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet</small> within a predetermined interval to monitor SC faults. Unlike conventional methods that detect the fault current/voltage magnitude, proposed turn- <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dv/dt</i> detection and protection timing sequence enable a very fast fault response time as well as enhance the noise immunity to fast switching of MV SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet</small> s. Furthermore, the proposed <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dv/dt</i> sensing based SCP can be integrated with DESAT circuit to provide over-current protection under the fault-under-load condition. The proposed integrated implementation can respond to SC faults without the blanking-time limitation and eliminates the need for the extra high-voltage sensing capacitor to lower cost. Experimental results on 3.3-kV SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet</small> s are provided to validate the effectiveness of proposed SCP method.