Characterization of Low-Inductance SiC Module With Integrated Capacitors for Aircraft Applications Requiring Low Losses and Low EMI Issues

Future aircrafts will be composed of high number of power converters having always higher power density and efficiency. In order to increase performance of such converters, a good option is the use of silicon carbide (SiC) transistors. Although these components reduce losses when compared to their silicon-based counterpart, they increase switching speed and overshoot during commutation, which can cause serious electromagnetic interference issues and overvoltages on loads connected to these converters. For that reason, power modules containing SiC transistors must have the lowest possible parasitic inductance. This article presents a multilevel low-inductance SiC power module designed to optimize a three-phase 540 V/15 kVA inverter for modern aircrafts. Precise dynamic characterization is performed in order to accurately determine switching energies and to show improvement of loss performance of this power module when compared to discrete components and also to power modules from the market. Inverter input and output common mode current reduction due to integrated common mode capacitors in the power module is experimentally shown.

Automated summary

Future aircrafts will use a high number of power converters with silicon carbide transistors for better performance. An optimized low-inductance SiC power module has been designed for modern aircraft inverters, showing improved performance and reduced common mode current due to integrated capacitors.