Abstract: SiC MOSFET can greatly improve the efficiency and power density of the converter, and has good application prospects in high frequency, high temperature and high voltage field. However, the SiC MOSFET's popularization and application have been limited due to its short short-circuit withstand time, serious characteristic degradation, and ambiguous failure mechanism. Therefore, it is valuable to explore SiC MOSFET short-circuit degradation and failure mechanism, that can provide guidance for the application of SiC MOSFET devices and the design of their protection circuits. Firstly, this paper summarized various types of SiC MOSFET short-circuit faults, and the characteristic for one of the typical short-circuit faults was analyzed in detail. Based on this, it discussed SiC MOSFET's two typical failure modes, the failure mechanism and influencing factors after a single short-circuit fault. Secondly, the status of SiC MOSFET degradation mechanism after repetitive short circuit stress was systematically summarized. Finally, the current research difficulties of short-circuit failure and characteristic degradation of SiC MOSFET were pointed out, and the development trend of SiC MOSFET short-circuit characteristic research was prospected.