Comparison of conventional and cascode drive of SiC BJTs

• Main Authors: Neville McNeill, Mark A. H. Broadmeadow, Nina Roscoe, Stephen Finney
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019-04-01
• Series: The Journal of Engineering
• Subjects: driver circuits; silicon compounds; wide band gap semiconductors; bipolar transistor circuits; MOSFET circuits; SiC; voltage 600.0 V; current 2.5 A; buck converter; bipolar junction transistor; cascode variant; low-voltage silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor; BJT; cascode driver circuits; simple conventional driver circuits
• Online Access: https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/journals/10.1049/joe.2018.8034
• ISSN: 2051-3305

This study compares simple conventional and cascode driver circuits for the SiC bipolar junction transistor (BJT). A low-voltage silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor is used in the emitter of the BJT to realise the cascode variant. The circuits are experimentally evaluated when switching a current of 2.5 A and a voltage of 600 V in a buck converter.