Performance Analysis of Silicon Schottky Diode Family in DC-DC Converter Using Circuit Simulator

The unipolar-based devices, silicon schottky (SiS) and silicon carbide schottky (SiCS) power diodes are investigated for their reverse recovery transient responses and the effects on the turn-on losses of the switching MOSFET in the DC-DC converter. Two sets of inductive load chopper circuits are simulated using PSpice software to determine the effectiveness and superiority in each of the devices. All parameter settings are consistent for both converter circuits. The results have shown that the SiCS diode has higher energy savings of more than 73.13 % in turn-off switching losses. This eventually leads to the reduction of 96.16 % in MOSFET turn-off peak power dissipation of SiCS converter. However, there is a minor drawback in efficiency of the converter. Some detailed analyses are presented in the paper.