*Article* **A Hybrid Active Neutral Point Clamped Inverter Utilizing Si and Ga2O<sup>3</sup> Semiconductors: Modelling and Performance Analysis**

**Sheikh Tanzim Meraj <sup>1</sup> , Nor Zaihar Yahaya <sup>1</sup> , Molla Shahadat Hossain Lipu 2,3,\* , Jahedul Islam <sup>4</sup> , Law Kah Haw <sup>5</sup> , Kamrul Hasan <sup>6</sup> , Md. Sazal Miah <sup>7</sup> , Shaheer Ansari <sup>2</sup> and Aini Hussain <sup>2</sup>**


**Abstract:** 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 (Ga2O<sup>3</sup> ) 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 Ga2O<sup>3</sup> 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/Ga2O<sup>3</sup> 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 (Ga2O<sup>3</sup> ) 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%.

**Keywords:** power electronics; ultrawide bandgap; semiconductors; neutral point clamped; inverter; silicon; gallium trioxide; fabrication; hybridization
