A 91 mm diameter IGCT with extraordinary Safe Operating Area (SOA) is presented in this paper. The power density at turn-off reached values as high as 700 W/cm2, which is twice the previously reported SOA limit for devices with a comparable diameter. The improvement was achieved by masking one of the p-base diffusions, giving the p-base a corrugated appearance as well as improving the gate circuit.
I.' INTRODUCTIONTHE Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor (IGCT) was first presented in the 1990s. Employing "hard drive" as a means of turning off exclusively in pnp-mode, like the IGBT, it quickly became a more attractive choice than the GTO thanks to the possibility for snubberless operation and expanded SOA. In the on state, a properly designed thyristor is equivalent to a p-i-n rectifier with infinite possibilities for optimization of the excess carrier distribution, rendering lower switching losses than for example the IGBT. The low losses together with the possibility to fit a single IGCT with a current capability of thousands of Amperes makes it one of the top choices in the very high power range, for example in highpower inverters for industry and other applications. The shortcomings of IGCT technology are the possibility for controlled turn-on and intrinsic short-circuit current limitation; these are features available in well-designed IGBTs while still missing in IGCTs. These limitations inevitably add a certain overhead to IGCT-based circuits more specifically in the form of azdl/dt choke and a clamp for excessive voltages due to the choke. This overhead accentuates the benefits of the IGCT toward the higher end of the power range compared to the IGBT. As a result, there is a perpetual pull for more potent IGCTs that is usually met by increasing the device thickness and area with the expected impact on device losses. In this paper we show a new Corrugated p-Base IGCT technology (CB-IGCT) that facilitates a power density improvement without increasing the losses.T. Wikstrom, T. Stiasny, M. Rahimo and P. Streit are with
This paper describes the design, experimental investigations and the characteristics of 10 kV IGCTs for 6 kV -7.2 kV applications. Compared to a series connection of two or three IGCTs and inverse diodes in a three level neutral point clamped voltage source converter 10 kV IGCTs and diodes offer several attractive characteristics such as drastically increased reliability due to a substantially reduced component count, a simpler and more compact mechanical and thermal design and thus reduced converter costs. The design of 10 kV IGCTs as well as the test set up are discussed. Measurements of the blocking-, on-state-and switching behaviour are the basis for a detailed description of the device performance. The technology trade off of 10 kV IGCTs is addressed to enable an application specific optimization of the IGCT design for low and high switching frequency applications (e. g. railway interties and Medium Voltage Drives).
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