Gate Commutated Thyristor With Voltage Independent Maximum Controllable Current

Author

Lophitis, N. ; Antoniou, M. ; Udrea, F. ; Nistor, I. ; Rahimo, Munaf T. ; Arnold, Martin ; Wikstroem, Tobias ; Vobecky, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Eng., Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Volume

34

Issue

8

fYear

2013

fDate

Aug. 2013

Firstpage

954

Lastpage

956

Abstract

In this letter, we use a novel 3-D model, earlier calibrated with experimental results on standard gate commutated thyristors (GCTs), with the aim to explain the physics behind the high-power technology (HPT) GCT, to investigate what impact this design would have on 24 mm diameter GCTs, and to clarify the mechanisms that limit safe switching at different dc-link voltages. The 3-D simulation results show that the HPT design can increase the maximum controllable current in 24 mm diameter devices beyond the realm of GCT switching, known as the hard-drive limit. It is proposed that the maximum controllable current becomes independent of the dc-link voltage for the complete range of operating voltage.

Keywords

electric current control; switching convertors; thyristor applications; 3D model; GCT switching; HPT; dc link voltages; gate commutated thyristors; harddrive limit; high power technology; maximum controllable current; safe switching; size 24 mm; Gate commutated thyristor; maximum controllable current; safe operating area; thyristor; wafer modeling;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2013.2267552

Filename

6547666