Substitution of Si with Au and Ir in Ti3SiC2 through a solid-state diffusion process allows the synthesis of Ti3AuC2, Ti3Au2C2 and Ti3IrC2 phases able to form Ohmic contacts with SiC stable at high temperatures under ambient air conditions.

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Synthesis of Ti3AuC2, Ti3Au2C2 and Ti3IrC2 by noble metal substitution reaction in Ti3SiC2 for high-temperature-stable Ohmic contacts to SiC.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1882-0786/abc787/pdf

Defect engineering in SiC technology for high-voltage power devices

Short-term demonstrations of packaged 4H-SiC junction field-effect transistor (JFET) logic integrated circuits (ICs) at temperatures exceeding 800 °C in air are reported, including a 26-transistor 11-stage ring oscillator that functioned at 961 °C ambient temperature believed unprecedented for electrical operation of a semiconductor IC. The expanded temperature range should assist temperature acceleration testing/qualification of such ICs intended for long-term use in applications near 500 °C ambient, and perhaps spawn new applications. Ceramic package assembly leakage currents inhibited the determination of some intrinsic SiC device/circuit performance properties at these extreme temperatures, so it is conceivable that even higher operating temperatures might be obtained from SiC JFET ICs by employing packaging and circuit design intended/optimized for T $\ge800$ °C.

Demonstration of 4H-SiC Digital Integrated Circuits Above 800 °C

This paper presents a thorough characterization of 10 kV SiC mosfet power modules, equipped with third-generation mosfet chips and without external free-wheeling diodes, using the inherent SiC mosfet body-diode instead. The static performance (e.g., I DS– V DS , I DS– V GS, C – V characteristics, leakage current, body-diode characteristics) is addressed by measurements at various temperatures. Moreover, the power module is tested in a simple chopper circuit with inductive load to assess the dynamic characteristics up to 7 kV and 120 A. The SiC mosfet power module exhibits an on-state resistance of 40 mΩ at room-temperature and leakage current in the range of 100 nA, approximately one order of magnitude lower than that of a 6.5 kV Si-IGBT. The power module shows fast switching characteristics with the turn-on (turn-on loss) and turn-off (turn-off loss) times of 130 ns (89 mJ) and 145 ns (33 mJ), respectively, at 6.0 kV supply voltage and 100 A current. Furthermore, a peak short-circuit current of 900 A and a short-circuit survivability time of 3.5 μ s were observed. The extracted characterization results could serve as input for power electronic converter design and may support topology evaluation with realistic system performance predictability, using SiC mosfet power modules in the energy transmission and distribution networks.

Assessment of 10 kV, 100 A Silicon Carbide mosfet Power Modules

This paper is an important step toward the development of complex integrated circuit (IC) control electronics that have to attend to high-temperature environment power applications. We present in premiere a prototype set of essential mixed-signal ICs on SiC capable of controlling power switches and a lateral power MESFET able to operate at high temperatures, all embedded on the same chip. Also, we report for the first time the functionality of standard Si-CMOS topologies on SiC for the master–slave data flip-flop (FF) and data-reset FF digital building blocks designed with MESFETs. Concretely, we present the complete development of SiC-MESFET IC circuitry, able to integrate gate drivers for SiC power devices. This development is based on the mature and stable Tungsten–Schottky interface technology used for the fabrication of stable SiC Schottky diodes for the European Space Agency Mission BepiColombo.

SiC Integrated Circuit Control Electronics for High-Temperature Operation

A monolithic bipolar operational amplifier (opamp) fabricated in 4H-SiC technology is presented. The opamp has been used in an inverting negative feedback amplifier configuration. Wide temperature ...

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A Monolithic, 500 degrees C Operational Amplifier in 4H-SiC Bipolar Technology

Silicon carbide (SiC) integrated circuits have been suggested for extreme environment operation. The challenge of a new technology is to develop process flow, circuit models and circuit designs for ...

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6641/aa59a7/pdf

Bipolar integrated circuits in SiC for extreme environment operation

Three fully integrated bandgap voltage references (BGVRs) have been demonstrated in a 4H–SiC bipolar technology. The circuits have been characterized over a wide temperature range from 25 °C to 500 °C. The three BGVRs are functional and exhibit 46 ppm/°C, 131 ppm/°C, and 120 ppm/°C output voltage variations from 25 °C up to 500 °C. This letter shows that SiC bipolar BGVRs are capable of providing stable voltage references over a wide temperature range.

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Wide Temperature Range Integrated Bandgap Voltage References in 4H–SiC

High-temperature integrated circuits provide important sensing and controlling functionality in extreme environments. Silicon carbide bipolar technology can operate beyond 500 °C and has shown stable operation in both digital and analog circuit applications. This paper demonstrates an 8-b digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC is realized in a current steering R-2R configuration. High-gain Darlington current switches are used to ensure ideal switching at 500 °C. The measured differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integral nonlinearity (INL) at 25 °C are 0.79 and 1.01 LSB, respectively, while at 500 °C, the DNL and INL are 4.7 and 2.5 LSB, respectively. In addition, the DAC achieves 53.6 and 40.6 dBc of spurious free dynamic range at 25 °C and 500 °C, respectively.

A 500 °C 8-b Digital-to-Analog Converter in Silicon Carbide Bipolar Technology

A Process Design Kit (PDK) has been developed to realize complex integrated circuits in Silicon Carbide (SiC) bipolar low-power technology. The PDK development process included basic device modeling, and design of gate library and parameterized cells. A transistor–transistor logic (TTL)-based PDK gate library design will also be discussed with delay, power, noise margin, and fan-out as main design criterion to tolerate the threshold voltage shift, beta ( β ) and collector current ( I C ) variation of SiC devices as temperature increases. The PDK-based complex digital ICs design flow based on layout, physical verification, and in-house fabrication process will also be demonstrated. Both combinational and sequential circuits have been designed, such as a 720-device ALU and a 520-device 4 bit counter. All the integrated circuits and devices are fully characterized up to 500 °C. The inverter and a D-type flip-flop (DFF) are characterized as benchmark standard cells. The proposed work is a key step towards SiC-based very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits implementation for high-temperature applications.

Raheleh Hedayati

Papers

A Monolithic, 500 degrees C Operational Amplifier in 4H-SiC Bipolar Technology

Bipolar integrated circuits in SiC for extreme environment operation

Wide Temperature Range Integrated Bandgap Voltage References in 4H–SiC

A 500 °C 8-b Digital-to-Analog Converter in Silicon Carbide Bipolar Technology

Towards Silicon Carbide VLSI Circuits for Extreme Environment Applications