Modeling and Experimental Investigation of Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) for SiC-Based Motor Drive

Abstract

The motor drive has been widely adopted in modern power applications. With the emergency of the next generation wide bandgap semiconductor device, such as silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET, performance of the motor drive can be improved in terms of efficiency, power density, and reliability. However, the fast switching transient and serious switching ringing of the SiC MOSFET can cause unwanted high-frequency (HF) electromagnetic interference (EMI), which may significantly reduce the reliability of the motor drive in many aspects. In order to comprehensively reveal the mechanism of the EMI previously used in motor drives using SiC MOSFET, this paper plans to analyze the influences of both HF impedance of the motor and switching characteristics of the SiC MOSFET. A simulation model for motor drives has been proposed, which contains the HF circuit model of the motor as well as a semi-behavioral analytical model of the SiC MOSFET. Since the model shows a good agreement with the experimentally measured results on spectra of drain-source voltage of the SiC MOSFET (vds), phase to ground voltage of the motor (vphase), CM voltage (vcm), phase current of the motor (idm), and CM current (icm), it can be adopted to quantitatively investigate the influence of the motor impedance on EMI through frequency-domain analysis. Additionally, the impacts of switching characteristics of SiC MOSFET on EMI are also well studied according to relative experiment results in terms of switching speed, switching frequency, and switching ringing. Based on the analysis above, the relationship between motor impedance, switching characteristics of the SiC MOSFET, and HF EMI can be figured out, which is able to provide much helpful assistance for application of the motor drive.