Journal des systèmes biomédicaux et des technologies émergentes

Estimation of Insulating Materials for Semiconductor Power Device using DC Current Integrated Charge Measurement

Abstract

Yasuhiro Tanaka*, Kimio Hijikata and Hiroaki Miyake

A principle of “DC current integrated charge measurement method”, which is usually called as “Q(t) method” for simplicity, and some typical measurement results obtained using the Q(t) method are introduced in this paper. The Q(t) method is used for estimation of insulating properties of materials at various temperature under various DC electric field, while the measurement system for it is simple and not so expensive. Furthermore, since the method is applicable to variously shaped insulating materials, it is useful for various electric and electronic devices. Recently, some semiconductor power devices using some newly developed semiconductor like SiC or GaN, which work at high temperature under high electric stress, are developed for actual use driver circuits of electric vehicles and trains. To draw their authentic power at the higher temperature under the higher electric stress, it is necessary to improve the insulating materials to show a good insulating performance under such severe condition. Therefore, estimation of the insulating properties under such condition is also important. The Q(t) method seems to be a suitable technique to estimate them. In this paper, some estimation results on some commercially available power devices are reported to show the effectivity of the method.