Fabrication of a Double-Sided Cooled Half-Bridge Silicon Carbide Power Module for Electric Vehicles

In this paper, a novel high-density half-bridge silicon carbide double-sided cooled power module is designed, fabricated, and verified with double pulse tests in a clamped inductive load circuit at 800 V and a load current of 230 A. The modules’ key design features include 45-degree vertical connection blocks to provide maximum heat dissipation path, low temperature co-fired ceramic-based interposer to provide mechanical strength and electrical isolation, integrated gate driver boards, and integrated temperature sensors. The often-undocumented fabrication challenges of building a double-sided cooled power module are highlighted and ways to overcome these are explained with the help of tests, and device performance monitoring after each process. The junction-to-case thermal resistance of the module package is only 0.11 K/W. The power density of the proposed inverter design is 77.2 kW/L.