Packaging and

Characterization of Silicon
Carbide Thyristor
Power Modules
Presented by,
Sanjay B.R
1 M.Tech
SJEC
Mangalore

CONTENTS

Introduction

Module Fabrication

Results and Discussions

Conclusions

References

1. Introduction
Advantages

of SiC devices over their Si

counterparts
SiC is a wide bandgap semiconductor material
which allows it to be used at temperatures above
175C, the maximum operating temperature of Si
devices
Higher thermal conductivity
Higher breakdown electric field strength
Higher Saturation drift velocity
Higher Thermal stability
Higher chemical inertness
Volumetric reduction of SiC-based PE systems
Simpler thermal management systems

Why packaging?
For

Parallel configuration of SiC devices

Current yield of large-area SiC devices is low

primarily due to material defects.
To promote better thermal coupling.
It

is important that these parallel-configured

SiC devices share current equally to reduce
the potential for failure.

Work
3

SiC thyristor devices with dimensions of

10mm*10mm*0.45mm were packaged into a
single module on a direct bond copper (DBC)
substrate for potential application In a fault
current limiter
Each thyristor is capable of handling a current
of 100A, at a breakdown voltage of 5kV
In this thyristor , the anode and gate
terminals are on the top side while the
backside of the device is the cathode terminal
The metallization on the device is gold/nickel
and the passivation is polyimide

2. Module Fabrication
A

DBC substrate was chosen as the packaging

substrate for SiC power module

dry film photolithography process was used to

pattern the DBC substrate using a photomask

The

unwanted nickel-plated copper on the DBC

substrate was etched using a spray etcher

Removal

of oxide on the surface was achieved

by etching in a chemical bath and then dry
etching in a vacuum chamber at an elevated
temperature

 An

SST 3130 vacuum/pressure chamber was

employed to attach the thyristors onto the DBC
substrate

Tooling

made of graphite was machined to hold

the dice and DBC substrate during bonding
operation in furnace

An

eutectic solder preform of 97.5Pb1.5Ag1Sn

with a melting point of 309C was used as the
die attachment solder

scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) technique

was used to evaluate the die bond, so that joint
defects in the solder bond can be detected

Fig. 1 Typical SAM image of die

bond

 Fig.1

shows a typical SAM scan image of a test

die bond on a DBC substrate

From

Fig.1 it can be seen that there are voids

around the edges of the test die

It

is likely that these voids were caused by the

solder
non-wetting at the interface, or some other
defect mechanisms

Process

parameters were optimized to reduce

the occurrence of such voids in actual die
attach

Fig. 2 SiC thyristors attached to the

DBC substrate

 Fig.2

shows the 3 SiC thyristors attached onto

the nickel plated DBC substrate

As

can be seen, the thyristors are rotated at

an angle with respect to their normal axes to
facilitate wire bonding of the gate electrode in
the middle of the dice

The

anode connection was provided by the

0.3mm diameter aluminum wires , with each
wire rated up to maximum of about 20A.

 These

8 wires provide sufficient current

capability for the devices 100A current rating

The

gate connection was provided by the

0.2mm diameter aluminum wires

After

wiring bonding, the power lugs and gate

connectors were soldered onto the substrate ,
and the substrate soldered to the base plate
using a low temperature soldering process

Sikama conduction/convection reflow furnace

was used for this soldering process

Fig. 3 A complete SiC module before

the package housing is attached

 Fig.3

shows the module structure after the

connectors were attached and the substrate
soldered to a copper heat spreader
The module was then encased in Teflon
package housing for faster prototyping of
modules
Power connections from the inside of the
housing to the outside were achieved by
flexible braided wires and screws
A silicon gel was used as the passivation
dielectric inside the package which limits the
high voltage breakdown of these devices to
below 600V
The modules are now ready for characterization

Fig. 4 A complete SiC power module package

3. Results and Discussions

Fig.4

shows the complete SiC power module

package with the Teflon enclosure providing the
external power connections for the anode (top
connectors) and cathode terminals (2 side
connectors) as well as the gate terminals ( bottom
3 connectors )

The

thyristor module was designed with a common

cathode for all 3 thyristors in a linear fashion but
with separate connections for gates and anodes

The

thyristors were electrically characterized by

connecting all 3 thyristors in parallel

Fig. 5 On-state currents for

unmatched parallel configuration

 Fig.5

shows the steady-state on-state currents as a

function of time for the 3 thyristors in power
module

As

can be seen, their turn-on times were not much

different at about 5s with a 5A/s gate drive

However,

the thyristor with the fastest turn-on

time (thyristor 5) attains a steady-state current of
about 3.5 times larger than that of the thyristor
with the slowest turn-on time (thyristor 1)

For

parallel operation, thyristors should carry the

same amount of current to prevent the possibility
of thermal runaway

Approaches
The

conventional approach in Si thyristors is to slow

the turn-on of the device with the higher on-state
current
One method is to add a series gate inductance to
lower the di/dt of the gate pulse (5A/s in this case)
applied to the faster thyristors
This would presumptively equalize the turn-on time
of all the devices for all the 3 thyristors in the
parallel configuration and current sharing would be
achieved
The test results showed that as the turn-on time of
the SiC thyristors is fast this gating method had a
very little effect on the magnitude of its steadystate on-state current

Fig. 6 Current-voltage characteristics

of individual thyristors

 SiC

thyristors were found to exhibit great

differences in their on-state characteristics as
shown in Fig.6

It

can be seen that thyristor 5 has the lowest onstate voltage and thus highest on-state current
compared to the other 2 thyristors

As

in silicon thyristors, the on-state current are

also limited by the external impedance in the
circuit

The

next approach is to change the on-state

voltage of each thyristor through a small seriesconnected resistance inserted between their
anodes and the common current path in parallel
configuration

 Drawback

of using a series resistors are the

increased power losses associated with them

Series

resistance values of 0.10 , 0.15 ,

and 0.15 were inserted between anode and
common current path for thyristors 1, 3 and
5 respectively

The

I^2 R losses of these series resistors

only comprised approximately 27% of the
total losses in the parallel configuration

Fig. 7 On-state currents for impedance

matched parallel configuration

 Fig.7

shows the on-state current as a function of

time for 3 thyristors after insertion of the series
resistances
These thyristors are now carrying almost the same
amount of steady-state currents and the total
amount of current is approximately 30A compared
to the unmatched current of 33.5A
This is because the on-state voltage for the
thyristor with the highest on-state current
decreases with a larger series resistance which in
turn results in decrease in its steady-state onstate current
As such, the thyristor with the lowest on-state
current now has a larger on-state voltage, and
consequently, carries a larger on-state current

Fig. 8 Thermal characteristics of

paralleled devices

Thermal runaway
Fig.8

shows the current through each of the

individual devices for given temperatures
The SiC thyristors have negative temperature
coefficient with respect to on-state resistance
The current through each device increases as
the device temperature increases.
The close proximity of the thyristors on a
common heat spreader in the module
ensures a good thermal matching
Therefore, all devices carry the same amount
of on-state current and hence, have the
same temperature

4. Conclusions
Thyristor

power modules with 3 SiC thyristors

were fabricated and electrically characterized
for potential utility applications
The 3 SiC thyristors were attached onto a
common DBC substrate with a copper heat
spreader
The steady-state on-state currents of these
SiC thyristors were affected primarily by their
differences in their on-state voltages
Series resistances can be inserted to modify
their on-state voltages to attain good
matching of their on-state currents

 The

good thermal matching of the module

approach reduced the possibility of thermal
runaway when these thyristors were connected
in a parallel configuration

In

the near future, high-voltage switches based

on SiC semiconductor will require parallel/series
connections due to defects in this material

This

paper demonstrated that parallel

connections of SiC bare dice requires careful
package layout and design to achieve uniform
temperature distribution and equal current
sharing among the individual bare die

5. References
[1]

B. Jayant Baliga, Silicon Carbide Power

Devices, World Scientific Publishing Co.,
2005.
[2] W. J. Choyke and G. Pencel, Physical
properties of SiC, MRS Bulletin, March 1997.
[3] K. Jarrendahl, and R. Davis, Material
Properties and Characterization of SiC,
Semiconductors and Semimetals, in SiC
Materials and Devices, Vol.52, Y.S. Park,
(ed.), 1998.
[4] Tom Martin, and Terry Martin, High
Temperature Aluminum Nitride Packaging,
Third International High Temperature
Conference, Vol. 2, pp.95-100, June, 1996.

Thank You