High-Speed Drive Circuit with Separate Source Terminal for 600 V / 40 A Normally-off SiC-JFET

When using JFETs with a threshold voltage lower than 2 V in a power supply system or inverter system, a high-speed drive circuit capable of precisely controlling the gate current and a mounting method are important to reduce the switching loss. In this paper, a drive circuit of a normally-off SiC-JFET with a separate source terminal is proposed and the effects are evaluated. By dividing the common source inductance and applying the speed-up capacitor, the turn-on time and turn-on energy losses can be decreased by 40% and 60%, respectively. A speed-up capacitor larger than 100 nF greatly decreases the rising time (tr) and turn-on energy losses. By applying the developed normally-off SiC-JFETs and proposed gate driver to PFC circuits and DC/DC circuits, a highly efficient power supply will be achieved.