A Guide To Snubber Capacitor Selection For SiC-Based Switching Converters

Today, most converter circuits now include semiconductors and switches made of silicon carbide (SiC) instead of plain old silicon (Si). This is because when silicon and carbon are combined, the resulting material, SiC, has excellent mechanical, chemical, and thermal properties. Therefore, SiC-based converters can handle voltages up to 10 times greater than converters using just Si while also offering lower losses. These characteristics make these converters an excellent option for applications such as power electronics, industrial devices, and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. In this first post, we dive into the advantages of using snubber circuits to protect SiC-based converters and discuss how to further increase these efficiencies by focusing on capacitor selection.