New Evaluation for Thermal Diffusivity of High-Power Devices with Different Packages

The high voltage and low loss power electronic devices of the future are based on silicon carbide (SiC), which is a wide-bandgap compound semiconductor with superior physical and electrical properties over silicon (Si). The on-state resistance of some SiC power devices is orders of magnitude lower (for example, seven times lower in this paper) than that of silicon devices at a given blocking voltage. This paper presents a thermal comparison for several power devices, with different packages and ON resistances, based on a key thermal transport parameter, the thermal diffusivity. Investigations for this work were conducted using a new method for the measurement of thermal diffusivity.