JEDEC’s JC-70.2 Silicon Carbide Subcommittee has published two new free guidelines—JEP203 and JEP204—standardizing how engineers evaluate and qualify SiC power devices in EV inverters, industrial drives and energy infrastructure.

JEP203, Guideline for Short Circuit Evaluation in Power Conversion Transistors, addresses short-circuit capability testing for power MOSFETs. Short-circuit behavior is a particular concern with SiC: unlike silicon IGBTs, SiC MOSFETs typically have shorter short-circuit withstand times, which puts tighter demands on protection circuit design and gate driver response. Without a standard test methodology, results have varied across vendors and test labs, complicating design decisions for system engineers. JEP203 provides a shared evaluation framework to improve protection design consistency and make device-to-device comparisons more meaningful.

JEP204, Catalog of Stress Procedures for Silicon Carbide Devices for Power Electronic Conversion, is a broader reliability reference covering stress procedures across reliability, environmental and ruggedness categories. It gives qualification engineers and device manufacturers a common testing vocabulary for evaluating long-term SiC device performance—something the industry has lacked as SiC adoption has outpaced formal standardization.

Both documents are available for free download from JEDEC’s website.

JEDEC’s JC-70 committee now has more than 70 member companies—up from 23 at its founding in October 2017—including SiC and GaN semiconductor makers, power device users and test and measurement suppliers.

“JEP203 and JEP204 are landmark guidelines for SiC power conversion, enabling the industry to confidently adopt silicon carbide in demanding power electronic applications,” said Dr. Donald Gajewski, Wolfspeed Senior Director Reliability Engineering and chair of the 702_1 Task Group. “JEP204 provides a comprehensive framework of best practices for stressing SiC power devices, offering significant value to both users and suppliers.”

Source: JEDEC