New FOM-Based Performance Evaluation of 600/650 V SiC and GaN Semiconductors for Next-Generation EV Drives

The drive inverter represents a central component of an electric vehicle (EV) train, being responsible for the DC/AC power conversion between battery and electrical machine. In this context, novel converter topologies adopting modern 600/650V wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices will play crucial role in improving performance next-generation inverters. fact, WBG theoretically allow to achieve both higher density efficiency with respect conventional silicon (Si) IGBT based solutions. Even though carbide (SiC) are already well established automotive industry, high-voltage gallium nitride (GaN) rapidly entering market, promising theoretical but featuring lower degree maturity. As consequence, it is currently not clear which technology most suited future EV Therefore, paper aims address gap providing comparative evaluation state-of-the-art SiC GaN active switches. particular, figure-of-merit (FOM) representing minimum losses under hard-switching operation introduced. Remarkably, FOM enables fair accurate comparison among devices, allowing clearly determine best performing given set application-specific conditions. results assessment show that available switch technologies can outperform each other depending on operating temperature switching frequency.