New silicon carbide power module for electric vehicles

Silicon carbide in electric vehicles stands for more efficiency, higher power density and performance. Particularly with an 800 V battery system and a large battery capacity, silicon carbide leads to a higher efficiency in inverters and thus enables longer ranges or lower battery costs. At its virtual PCIM booth (July 1-3), Infineon Technologies AG will present the EasyPACK™ module with CoolSiC™ automotive MOSFET technology, a 1200 V half-bridge module with an 8 mΩ/150 A current rating.

In the past ten years, Infineon has sold more than 50 million EasyPACK modules with different chipsets for a wide range of industrial and automotive applications. At the same time, the semiconductor manufacturer has successfully established its extensive portfolio of CoolSiC products in industrial applications. With the introduction of the CoolSiC automotive MOSFET technology into the EasyPACK and full automotive qualification, Infineon is now expanding the range of applications for the module family to include high-voltage applications in electric cars with high efficiency and switching frequency requirements. These include HV/HV-DC-DC step-up converters, multi-phase inverters and fast-switching auxiliary drives such as compressors for fuel cells.

CoolSiC Automotive MOSFET technology

The new module is based on Infineon's silicon carbide trench MOSFET structure. Compared to planar structures, the trench structure enables a higher cell density, resulting in the best-in-class figure of merit. As a result, trench MOSFETs can be operated at lower gate-oxide field strengths for higher reliability.

First-generation CoolSiC automotive MOSFET technology is optimized for use in traction inverters, with a focus on achieving the lowest possible conduction losses, especially under partial load conditions. Combined with the low switching losses of silicon carbide MOSFETs, this enables losses in inverter operation to be reduced by around 60 percent compared to silicon IGBTs.

In addition to optimizing performance, Infineon attaches great importance to reliability. The chip manufacturer develops and tests CoolSiC automotive MOSFETs with the aim of achieving high short-circuit, cosmic ray, and gate-oxide robustness, which is key for designing efficient and reliable high-voltage applications in electric cars.

The new CoolSiC automotive MOSFET power module is fully qualified to the AQG324 standard.