Zero Current Switching Performance of 1200V PT-Clustered Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor

In this paper the soft-switching performance of a 1.2kV punch-through Clustered Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (CIGBT) is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The CIGBT, a novel three terminal power semiconductor device, has previously been shown to give improved performance over state-of-the-art IGBT devices during inductive hard-switching conditions. Under zero current switching conditions, high transient voltage peaks have been observed in the CIGBT during turn-on. The layout design of the CIGBT has a direct impact on the magnitude of this peak voltage. Small cluster to cluster spacing causes abnormal behaviour of the device during turn-on and thus optimisation of the CIGBT design will reduce transient peaks to a minimum. Despite the transient voltage peak at turn-on, energy losses of the CIGBT are less than a comparative IGBT of the same rating while the dynamic on-state voltage is reduced by 15%.