Silicon Carbide Power Devices Modeling and Characterisation

Silicon carbide (SiC) is the perfect cross between silicon and diamond. The crystal lattice of SiC is identical to silicon and diamond, but, exactly half the lattice sites are occupied by silicon atoms and half by carbon atoms. Like-diamond SiC has electronic properties superior to silicon, but, unlike diamond it is also manufacturable. The thermal leakage current (dark current) in SiC is sixteen orders-of magnitude lower as well. As temperature increases, the leakage current increases, but, the temperature where the leakage current would disrupt circuit operation is over 1000 °C in SiC, compared to about 250 °C in silicon. The SiC electronic revolution began in the early 1990's when single-crystal wafers became commercially available for the first time. During the intervening years, many different electronic devices have been demonstrated in SiC, with performance often exceeding the theoretical limits of silicon. These include pin diodes, MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs), and bipolar transistors (BJTs), as well as specialized devices such as CCD imagers, Schottky diodes, static induction transistors (SITS) and impact-ionization-avalanche-transit-time (MATT) microwave oscillators. These early digital logic gates and linear elements are based on n-channel MOS technology, but, quickly followed by more sophisticated CMOS integrated circuits.