The effects of radiation on the terrestrial operation of SiC MOSFETs

Terrestrial neutron induced reliability concerns are quantified for silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFETs and silicon carbide power diodes using the terrestrial neutron simulator at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. The experiments are used to determine failure in time (FIT) curves for these SiC power devices, and compare their curves with those of silicon power counterparts. The comparisons indicate significantly lower FIT rates for SiC devices at the rated voltage; however, the SiC FIT curves exhibit a tail extending into low biases resulting in nonzero albeit low FIT numbers.