Anode-gated MOS controlled thyristor with ultra-fast switching capability

Two-dimensional numerical simulations are used to investigate the effect of increasing the anode MOS channels on the turn-off loss and switching speed. Two devices of 1700V rating have been compared herein under identical conditions: the anode-gated thyristor, the anode-gated clustered IGBT (AG-CIGBT) and anode-gated IGBT (AG-IGBT). The anode MOS channels only conduct during the turn-off phase and drain out excess drift region charge. It is shown that as the number of anode MOS channels is increased turn-off loss is significantly reduced without compromising the low on-state voltage of the AG-CIGBT. The reduction in turn-off loss is more than 62% compared to a conventional structure. His demonstrates that anode-gated thyristor structures can simultaneously provide low n-state voltage, low turn-off loss and fast switching. The results are extremely significant because no bipolar device concept has been reported to achieve all three properties simultaneously.