Abnormal failure mechanism of the asymmetrical emitter turn-off thyristor in high-frequency converters

Author

Xu, Zhenxue ; Motto, Kevin ; Huang, Alex Q.

Author_Institution

Bradley Dept. of Electr. Eng., Virginia Polytech. Inst. & State Univ., Blacksburg, VA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

2001

Firstpage

1504

Abstract

The emitter turn-off thyristor (ETO) is a new MOS-controlled thyristor that is suitable for use in high-power converters due to its improved switching performance and easy control. This paper analyzes the abnormal failures related to the parasitic diode of the ETO in high-frequency converters for the first time. To prevent this failure, several solutions are proposed and improved ETOs are developed. Experimental results show that the proposed solutions can properly solve this problem.

Keywords

MOS-controlled thyristors; failure analysis; power semiconductor switches; semiconductor device reliability; switching circuits; thyristor convertors; ETO; MOS-controlled thyristor; abnormal failure mechanism; asymmetrical emitter turn-off thyristor; failure prevention; high-frequency converters; parasitic diode; switching performance; Anodes; Cathodes; Control systems; Failure analysis; MOSFETs; P-i-n diodes; Switches; Switching loss; Tail; Thyristors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Industry Applications Conference, 2001. Thirty-Sixth IAS Annual Meeting. Conference Record of the 2001 IEEE

Conference_Location

Chicago, IL, USA

ISSN

0197-2618

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7114-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IAS.2001.955734

Filename

955734