A Hybrid Active Neutral Point Clamped Inverter Utilizing Si and Ga₂O₃ Semiconductors: Modelling and Performance...

In this paper, the performance of an active neutral point clamped (ANPC) inverter is evaluated, which is developed utilizing both silicon (Si) and gallium trioxide (Ga₂O₃) devices. The hybridization of semiconductor devices is performed since the production volume and fabrication of ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors are still in the early-stage, and they are highly expensive. In the proposed ANPC topology, the Si devices are operated at a low switching frequency, while the Ga₂O₃ switches are operated at a higher switching frequency. The proposed ANPC mitigates the fault current in the switching devices which are prevalent in conventional ANPCs. The proposed ANPC is developed by applying a specified modulation technique and an intelligent switching arrangement, which has further improved its performance by optimizing the loss distribution among the Si/Ga₂O₃ devices and thus effectively increases the overall efficiency of the inverter. It profoundly reduces the common mode current stress on the switches and thus generates a lower common-mode voltage on the output. It can also operate at a broad range of power factors. The paper extensively analyzed the switching performance of UWBG semiconductor (Ga₂O₃) devices using double pulse testing (DPT) and proper simulation results. The proposed inverter reduced the fault current to 52 A and achieved a maximum efficiency of 99.1%.