Recent Progress in Studies on SiC Power Devices and its Applications

The current state-of-the-art and the future potential of SiC power devices such as power Schottky-barrier diodes, pn junction diodes, power MOSFETs, BJT, GTO, GCT, power modules and so on, are reviewed in the viewpoint of advanced power electronic technology. It is shown that the advantage of SiC is not only a potential capability to make modern power devices operate at much higher voltages, temperatures and switching frequencies but also reduce power losses substantially, which makes fuller use of the energy-save advantage of power electronic technology. Preliminary studies on applications of SiC devices to power electronics technology are also briefly reviewed.