
Silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFETs have superior conduction, switching and thermal properties compared to silicon (Si) MOSFETs and IGBTs [1]. However, unlike Si devices, whose reliability is well understood from decades of research and field data, SiC device technology is relatively nascent and has only recently started witnessing wide scale deployment. This reliability challenge can possibly be addressed through two complementary solutions as shown in Figure 1: 1) developing a large accelerated aging dataset of SiC devices under various conditions to understand their long term reliability and guide future device development, 2) using on-board, in-system prognostics and device health monitoring techniques to predict imminent device failures well ahead of time, thus ensuring reliable system operation [2].
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