The Fast Over-voltage Protection Consideration and Design for SiC-based Matrix Converters

The direct matrix converter is an AC to AC converter with high power density. With the employment of wide-bandgap devices like silicon carbide devices, the converter performance can be further improved. For a safe operation of matrix converters, an overvoltage protection circuit is necessary to limit the device voltage stress during fault conditions. Due to the high switching speed of silicon carbide devices, the topology and layout design of the overvoltage protection circuit are critical to ensure a fast and robust protection for the devices. In this paper, a detachable overvoltage protection circuit was designed and used for each phase-leg of the matrix converter. The topology and hardware layout design are explained. A 15 kW silicon carbide matrix converter was built and the designed overvoltage protection circuits had been employed and tested.