Determination of catalogue parameters of power semiconductor devices using experiment design theory

The traditional determination of the parameters and characteristics of semiconductor power devices requires a large number of measurements. The graphic presentation and tabular listing of the measured parameters employed in catalogues are inconvenient and badly suited for direct use, especially in computer simulation and CAD converter design. The authors present a way of solving these problems on the example of measurement of dynamic parameters of a thyristor. The effective approach proposed makes use of the mathematical apparatus of experiment design theory. It allows a minimisation of the number of measurements taken and a holistic, analytical formulation of the influence of factors on parameters, and produces formulae describing the parameters of the thyristor. Successive stages of the method are illustrated by the determination and description of reverse-recovered charge and the turn-off time of the thyristor as a function of four factors: junction temperature, forward current, the rate of fall of forward current at turn-off, and reverse voltage