company blog about Supply Mitsubishi SiC Power Devices:SiC DIPIPM,SiC Power Module,SiC-MOSFET

Supply Mitsubishi SiC Power Devices:SiC DIPIPM,SiC Power Module,SiC-MOSFET

Shenzhen Mingjiada Electronics Co., Ltd., as a professional electronic component distributor, leverages years of industry experience and a stable supply chain to provide electronic component solutions for the market, including 5G chips, new energy ICs, IoT ICs, Bluetooth ICs, vehicle networking ICs, automotive-grade ICs, communication ICs, artificial intelligence ICs, memory ICs, sensor ICs, microcontroller ICs, transceiver ICs, Ethernet ICs, WiFi chips, wireless communication modules, connectors, and other products. The company has always adhered to the principle of ‘serving customers and benefiting customers,’ providing customers with high-quality and diverse electronic components.

The Mitsubishi SiC power device series covers the entire product line from discrete devices to smart modules, primarily comprising three major categories:

SiC DIPIPM (Dual In-Line Package Intelligent Power Module): A compact solution integrating drive circuits and protection functions

SiC power modules: Including all-SiC modules and hybrid SiC modules, suitable for medium to high-power applications

SiC-MOSFET: Discrete device form, offering design flexibility and high-frequency performance advantages

These products leverage the unique physical properties of SiC material, such as high breakdown field strength, high thermal conductivity, and high electron saturation drift velocity, to demonstrate significant advantages in fields such as new energy power generation, electric vehicle drives, industrial variable frequency drives, and smart grids. Compared to traditional silicon-based devices, Mitsubishi SiC power devices can reduce system energy consumption by over 30%, significantly enhance power density, while reducing system size and weight.

Features of Mitsubishi SiC DIPIPM Smart Power Modules

Mitsubishi SiC DIPIPMs represent the cutting-edge development direction of smart power module technology. These modules integrate SiC MOSFETs or SiC SBDs (Schottky barrier diodes) with drive circuits and protection functions into a compact dual in-line package, providing system designers with a plug-and-play, high-efficiency solution. Compared to traditional IPMs (Intelligent Power Modules), SiC DIPIPMs fully leverage the performance advantages of silicon carbide materials while retaining the benefits of ease of design and high reliability, making them particularly suitable for applications with space constraints but stringent performance requirements.

Technical Features of SiC DIPIPMs

Mitsubishi's SiC DIPIPM modules incorporate multiple innovative technologies, with key features including:

High-efficiency design: Utilising SiC MOSFETs as switching devices, the SiC DIPIPM significantly reduces on-resistance and switching losses compared to traditional silicon-based IGBTs. Test data shows that under identical operating conditions, the total losses of the SiC DIPIPM can be reduced by over 40% compared to silicon-based IPMs, resulting in a 2–5 percentage point improvement in overall system efficiency.

High-frequency operation capability: The characteristics of SiC material allow the DIPIPM to operate at higher switching frequencies (up to 100 kHz or higher) without incurring excessive switching losses like silicon devices. This feature enables application systems to use smaller passive components (such as inductors and capacitors), thereby reducing system size and weight.

Integrated protection functions: The module incorporates multiple protection circuits, including under-voltage lockout (UVLO), overcurrent protection (OCP), over-temperature protection (OTP), and short-circuit protection (SCP). These protection functions are implemented via a dedicated control IC, with response times as fast as microseconds, effectively preventing power devices from being damaged due to abnormal conditions.

Simplified thermal management: Due to the high-temperature operating capability of SiC devices (maximum junction temperature up to 200°C) and low losses, DIPIPM has relatively relaxed requirements for heat dissipation systems. In many applications, simple aluminium heat sinks or even PCB copper foil heat dissipation can meet the requirements, significantly reducing system thermal design complexity and cost.

Compact packaging: Adopting the industry-standard DIP (dual in-line package) form factor, with optimised pin spacing and arrangement, it facilitates PCB layout design. The typical package size is only one-third to one-half that of traditional IPMs, making it particularly suitable for space-constrained embedded applications.

Comparison and analysis of Mitsubishi's all-SiC power modules and hybrid SiC power modules

As a leader in the power semiconductor field, Mitsubishi Electric offers two major product series: SiC power modules and hybrid SiC power modules, catering to the balanced performance and cost requirements of different application scenarios. Although these two types of modules share similar names, they exhibit significant differences in technical architecture, performance characteristics, and application positioning. A thorough understanding of these differences is crucial for engineers to make the correct selection and optimise system design.

Technical Advantages of All-SiC Power Modules

Mitsubishi's all-SiC power modules are manufactured using pure silicon carbide material, with all switching devices and diodes in the module being SiC-based semiconductors, primarily including SiC MOSFETs and SiC SBDs (Schottky barrier diodes). This ‘all-SiC’ architecture offers multiple performance advantages:

Ultra-low switching losses: SiC MOSFETs have extremely fast switching speeds, with energy losses during turn-on and turn-off processes being only 1/5 to 1/10 of those in silicon IGBTs. This characteristic makes all-SiC modules particularly suitable for high-frequency switching applications, such as the DC-DC boost stage in solar inverters.

High-temperature operation capability: The wide bandgap characteristics of SiC material (3.26 eV) enable it to operate reliably at junction temperatures of 200°C or higher, whereas traditional silicon devices are typically limited to temperatures below 150°C. This feature simplifies heat dissipation system design and increases power density.

High blocking voltage: Mitsubishi's HV-SiC high-voltage power modules can achieve blocking voltages exceeding 10kV, making them particularly suitable for high-voltage applications such as smart grids, high-voltage direct current transmission (HVDC), and large-scale industrial drives.

System-level benefits: Actual application data shows that systems using all-SiC modules can reduce energy consumption by over 30% compared to traditional silicon-based IGBT solutions, while significantly reducing system size and weight. For example, in electric vehicle charging stations, all-SiC modules can increase charging efficiency by 2-3% while reducing the size of the power unit by 40%.

Cost-effectiveness balance of hybrid SiC power modules

Hybrid SiC power modules adopt a compromise technology approach, combining SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with silicon-based IGBTs in the same module. This design achieves a good balance between performance improvement and cost control:

Diode performance improvement: The freewheeling diodes in the module use SiC SBDs, completely eliminating the inherent reverse recovery issues of silicon diodes and reducing reverse recovery losses by over 80%. This improvement significantly reduces switching noise and losses during diode turn-off.

Cost advantage: By retaining silicon-based IGBTs as switching devices, the cost of hybrid SiC modules is 30-50% lower than all-SiC solutions, making them more accessible for price-sensitive applications.

Compatibility with existing designs: The drive requirements for hybrid SiC modules are essentially the same as standard IGBTs, allowing engineers to upgrade system performance without significantly modifying existing drive circuits, thereby reducing design migration complexity.

Mitsubishi's hybrid SiC power modules are particularly suitable for applications requiring high reliability and gradual performance improvements, such as industrial motor drives, wind power generation, and rail transportation.

Characteristics of Mitsubishi SiC-MOSFET discrete devices

Mitsubishi SiC-MOSFET discrete devices offer greater flexibility and customisation options for power electronics system design. Unlike integrated SiC power modules, discrete SiC-MOSFETs allow engineers to freely select topology structures, layout configurations, and thermal management solutions, making them particularly suitable for applications requiring special configurations or those with extreme cost sensitivity.

Core Performance Parameters and Advantages

Mitsubishi SiC-MOSFET discrete devices demonstrate several breakthrough performance metrics, opening up new possibilities for power electronics design:

Low on-resistance: Thanks to the high critical breakdown electric field characteristics of SiC material, Mitsubishi SiC-MOSFETs achieve lower on-resistance (Rds(on)) than silicon-based MOSFETs at the same voltage rating. For example, devices with a 1200V voltage rating can achieve on-resistance as low as 40mΩ or below, significantly reducing conduction losses.

Ultra-fast switching speed: The switching time of SiC-MOSFETs is typically in the tens of nanoseconds range, which is one order of magnitude faster than silicon IGBTs. This characteristic not only reduces switching losses but also allows the system to operate at higher frequencies, thereby reducing the size of passive components.

Excellent body diode characteristics: Unlike silicon MOSFETs, the body diode of SiC-MOSFETs has a lower forward voltage drop and virtually no reverse recovery charge, enabling the elimination of external freewheeling diodes in certain applications and simplifying circuit design.

High-temperature stability: Mitsubishi SiC-MOSFETs exhibit minimal changes in transconductance (gfs) and threshold voltage (Vth) at high temperatures, ensuring stable switching characteristics across the entire operating temperature range.