Application of Newly-Developed 2.3kV Si and SiC Devices to Renewable Energy System

Newly developed 2.3kV Si-IGBT and SiC-MOSFET devices are introduced in this paper. The 2.3kV devices are suitable for 1500Vdc renewable energy system applications. A 1.7kV device is insufficient for 1500Vdc applications due to the low breakdown voltage. A 3.3kV device has high breakdown voltage but the on-state voltage loss and switching losses are large. Therefore, there is a strong demand for devices with the blocking voltage between 1.7kV and 3.3kV. To meet this demand, Fuji Electric has developed 2.3kV Si-IGBT and SiC-MOSFET with trench gate structure. The 2.3kV devices have high cost performance and efficiency compared to the 3.3kV device. The 2.3kV devices will enable the user to realize a simple, highly efficient, and cost-effective two-level inverter circuit for 1500Vdc applications instead of a 3-level NPC circuit with 1.2kV devices.