Optimum switching in IGBT transistor

The generalised industrial application of high power transistor based converters requires the implementation of transistor drive circuits capable of working without additional floating power supplies and satisfying a set of requirements imposed by the industrial end users. The paper presents the design, implementation and experimental results of an IGBT gate drive circuit fulfilling all these requirements. The gate circuit described uses two small, commercially available, pulse transformers, combined with a high frequency modulation of the control signal and the intrinsic input capacitor of the power switch. The high energy level needed during the commutations, of the 300 A, 1000 V IGBTs used in the application, is obtained through additional first pulse width modulation. This drive circuit is currently being used in industrial three phase PWM voltage inverters