Electrical engineering

Physics

Transistor

Electrode

Topology (electrical circuits)

MOSFET

Metal gate

Computer graphics (images)

Engineering

Planar

Voltage

Metallurgy

Materials science

Gate oxide

Degradation (telecommunications)

Silicon carbide

Oxide

Computer science

Quantum mechanics

Capacitance

Optoelectronics

IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics

Gate-oxide degradation has been one of the critical reliability concerns of silicon carbide (SiC) metal–oxide–semiconductor-field-effect transistors ( <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet s), which could be monitored through aging-sensitive parameters. In this article, an online gate-oxide degradation monitoring method for planar SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet s is proposed by extracting gate charge time at a specific range of gate voltage <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">. It is based on the findings that the input capacitances of planar SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet s change significantly over gate-oxide degradation, which is theoretically analyzed and experimentally verified. The capacitance variations are converted into the gate charge time as the new aging-sensitive parameter. The new parameter measurement circuit is proposed and integrated into the gate driver module. The article results indicate that the new parameter varies noticeably with gate-oxide degradation and the difference of this parameter caused by junction temperature is much smaller than that caused by degradation. Besides, the parameter is immune to package degradation and load current. The condition monitoring method can be implemented online since the parameter is extracted during the <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off -state of SiC <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mosfet devices, which does not affect normal operation. The confirmatory experiment is carried out to verify the correctness of the proposed method.

Online Gate-Oxide Degradation Monitoring of Planar SiC MOSFETs Based on Gate Charge Time