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Although gate-oxide degradation occurs in both silicon (Si) and silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs, it requires a special attention in SiC MOSFETs. This is because the gate oxide in SiC MOSFETs is comparatively thinner than the gate oxide in Si MOSFETs, and thus, a higher electric field that appears across it could push the gate oxide to its reliability limit. While several electrical parameters have been identified as precursors (indicators) for monitoring the gate-oxide degradation process in Si MOSFETs, very few have been identified for their SiC counterparts. The purpose of this article is twofold. The first objective is to demonstrate that the three gate-oxide degradation precursors identified for Si MOSFETs: 1) threshold voltage, 2) gate-plateau voltage, and 3) gate-plateau time can also be extended to SiC MOSFETs. The second objective is to demonstrate analytically and experimentally that all three precursors increase in a linear-with-log-stress-time manner during gate-oxide degradation in both planar and trench-gate SiC MOSFETs. The increasing trends of precursors and their associated logarithmic time responses were experimentally verified by inducing accelerated gate-oxide degradation in two different commercial SiC MOSFETs (650-V, 70-A trench-gate MOSFETs and 1200-V, 19-A planar MOSFETs) under high temperatures of 150 and 125 °C, respectively.

An effective output voltage regulation method using harmonic burst control is presented. This method can greatly improve operating performance of the full-bridge series-resonant dc-dc converter (SRC) applied to electric vehicle (EV) battery charging. The proposed harmonic burst control not only provides load regulation, but it also achieves soft switching at both turn-ons and turn-offs under all load conditions. As a result, it improves the system efficiency over 10% for light-load conditions without any extra hardware, compared to that of the traditional frequency modulation method. Moreover, it has much smaller pulsed power over a wide range load compared to the traditional bang-bang burst control. Theoretical analysis of the series-resonant circuit and power loss analysis are discussed in detail in this paper. Experimental results based on a 1-kW prototype with 20-cm air gap between the primary and secondary sides of the series-resonant converter are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

In this paper the Z-source converter is introduced to power factor correction (PFC) applications. The concept is demonstrated through a wireless power transfer (WPT) system for electric vehicle battery charging, namely Z-source resonant converter (ZSRC). Due to the Z-source network (ZSN), the ZSRC inherently performs PFC and regulate the system output voltage simultaneously, without adding extra semiconductor devices and control circuitry to the conventional WPT system such as conventional PFC converters do. In other words, the ZSN can be categorized as a family of the single stage PFC converters. In addition, the ZSN is suitable for high power applications since it is immune to shoot-through states, which increases reliability and adds a boost feature to the system. The ZSRC-based WPT system operating principle is described and analyzed in this paper. Simulations, and experimental results based on a 1-kW prototype with 20-cm air gap between the system primary and secondary side are presented to validate the analysis, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the ZSN in the PFC of the WPT system.

This paper presents a universal power converter building block (PCBB) with isolation transformer which can perform various functionalities such as charging (G2V), vehicle to grid (V2G) regenerative capability, and vehicle to load (V2L) feature. This converter can output different types of voltage, such as AC or DC, high voltage or low voltage, singlephase or three-phase. With different combinations of modularized PCBB, various voltage and power rating can also be achieved. The control algorithms for each operation mode are explained, including G2V, V2G, and V2L. Simulation results are accompanied to validate its capability. To achieve high power density, SiC MOSFET power module with high frequency switching is adopted along with the isolation transformer of nanocrystalline core. Overall, this paper extends a promising circuit topology of multiple practical and essential features for vehicle electrification.

In this paper, the effects of the resonant network characteristic and control variables on the dc-link capacitor of a wireless charger are investigated for electric vehicles, by deriving an analytical expression for the capacitance in terms of the resonant network parameters and system control variables. With this equation, the minimum dc-link capacitance needed can be obtained to keep the dc-link voltage ripple within a desired limit for a wide load range. A comparison between the conventional series-primary resonant networks in terms of the dc-link capacitance needs is presented as well as simulation results to validate the derived equation.

An effective output voltage regulation method using harmonic burst mode control strategy is presented. By using this strategy, the operating performance of the full-bridge series resonant dc-dc converter (SRC) applied to electric vehicle (EV) battery charging is improved. The proposed control strategy not only performs load regulation, but it also achieves soft switch both at turn-on and turn-off under any load condition. It also improves the system efficiency over 10% for light load conditions compared to the traditional frequency modulation control method, without adding extra hardware. Theoretical, compensation and loss analysis are discussed in details along this paper. Experimental results based on a 1-kW prototype with 20 cm air gap between the primary and secondary side of the SRC converter are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.