CISSOID, the leader in high-temperature and high reliability semiconductor solutions, introduces today a new version of HADES®, its turnkey isolated gate driver reference design, tailored to support SEMISOUTH silicon carbide (SiC), normally-off power JFETs (SJEP120R100).

HADES® Reference Design is based on the CISSOID chipset THEMIS, ATLAS and RHEA, sustaining junction temperatures from -55 °C up to +225 °C in metal and ceramic packages. Capitalizing on its long experience in High Reliability components, CISSOID will be also introducing in the coming months a lower temperature version limited to 125°C, with an expected operational lifetime of at least 20 years.

With a strong focus on transportation and renewable energy applications, this gate driver solution delivers:

• Optimized switching of SemiSouth’s SiC JFET technology, giving your system the highest possible switching efficiency;
• Reliable, robust operation for more than 20 years expected at 125°C;
• Low cost in mass production.

“CISSOID has already demonstrated its gate drive technology as the most reliable in harsh environment applications” said Jean-Christophe Doucet, VP Marketing at CISSOID. “What we are demonstrating today with SemiSouth is a derivative solution tailored to meet the requirements of the solar and transportation markets, meeting their low-cost target, while enabling efficiency gains and the longest lifetime that beats traditional semiconductors by more than a decade.”

Driving SemiSouth’s SJEP120R100 SiC JFET, the test board was able to hard-switch 600 V and 10 A with turn-off and turn-on times of only 14 ns and 24 ns, respectively. The test board also demonstrated very low switching losses (Etotal less than 124 μJ) that were a factor of 10 to 20 lower than standard silicon IGBTs, but also lower than a number of other SiC power switches. Overall, the system demonstrated superior power efficiency, taking full advantage of the SemiSouth devices.

“SemiSouth welcomes the announcement of CISSOID’s HADES gate driver solution,” said Dr. Kevin Speer, SemiSouth’s Director of Business Development. “We have seen, first-hand, the exceptional performance the HADES gate driver is capable of delivering with our SiC JFETs, and we are confident users will find it to be an elegant solution that offers industry-leading power conversion efficiency.”

CISSOID HADES®  half-bridge isolated gate driver board, P/N EVK-TIT0636B, is available now from CISSOID for electrical evaluation with the high-temperature version of the chipset; a single channel, low cost version of the isolated gate drive chipset will be introduced in the coming months. The Application Note (CISSOID AN-121168) is also available from CISSOID.