Evaluation of Different Si/SiC Hybrid Three-Level Active NPC Inverters for High Power Density

Compared with full-SiC mosfets converters, the hybrid utilization of Si/SiC converters is an alternative approach to achieve the tradeoff between performance and cost. A systematic method is proposed to generate 2-SiC and 4-SiC hybrid three-level active neutral-point-clamped (3L-ANPC) inverter topologies from two types of switching cells based on the arrangement of freewheeling paths. The 2-SiC hybrid 3L-APNC inverter and the 4-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter are analyzed in detail with switching states and modulation strategies given. The power losses are quantitatively compared between the 2-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter and the 4-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter. The junction operating temperatures of active switches in different hybrid 3L-ANPC inverters are also estimated. With the same specifications and switching device parameters, the maximum output power of the 4-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter with modulation strategy I is almost 1.47 times than that of the 2-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter. A universal prototype for the full-SiC scheme, the full-IGBT scheme, and different Si/SiC hybrid schemes is built to evaluate these topologies at conversion efficiency and thermal characteristics. Experimental results and analysis show that the full-SiC 3L-ANPC inverter has the highest efficiency, whereas the 2-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter has the best cost performance. Further, the 4-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter with modulation strategy I has better thermal balance characteristic than that of the 2-SiC hybrid 3L-ANPC inverter, which shows significant superiority in high power density applications.