SiC Solid-State Disconnect for High Power System Applications

This paper reports the design and experimental demonstration of a novel bi-directional solid-state disconnect (SSD) based on Silicon Carbide (SiC) depletion-mode junction field effect transistors (JFETs) for protecting critical sensitive components in high power systems. The SSD is able to provide a fast disconnect action upon receiving a preset trip current flowing through it and has a very low insertion loss, which makes it suitable for high power applications. For the application in 150kW six-phase power inverter systems, an insertion loss of less than 0.91% and a current fall time of less than 20 mu s for trip currents of about 800A have been demonstrated experimentally. To the best of our knowledge, there are no other solid-state disconnects available of comparable parameters.