Experimental Study on Voltage Breakdown Characteristic of IGBT

Author

Bo Wang ; Tang, Yong ; Chen, Ming

Author_Institution

Nat. Key Lab. for Vessel Integrated Power Syst. Technol., Naval Univ. of Eng., Wuhan, China

fYear

2011

fDate

25-28 March 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Abstract-Voltage breakdown is one of the most failure mechanisms to IGBT. High voltage can generate high electric field at PN junction of IGBT which withstands high voltage blocking. High electric field can bring avalanche phenomenon if this voltage is too high to make PN junction avalanche breakdown. Avalanche breakdown can make current rising dramatically and destroy the IGBT device lastly. This paper studies on the relation between avalanche breakdown voltage and temperature by inner physics equation, and tests the value of avalanche voltage at different temperature. As abrupt change with current at switching transient can induce a high peak voltage in power electron equipment, which may exceed the avalanche breakdown voltage, this paper also studies on how to reduce the peak voltage by adjusting resistance gate and temperature.

Keywords

insulated gate bipolar transistors; p-n junctions; power semiconductor devices; semiconductor device breakdown; IGBT; PN junction avalanche breakdown; electric field; inner physics equation; insulated gate bipolar transistors; power electron equipment; resistance gate; switching transient; voltage blocking; voltage breakdown characteristic; Avalanche breakdown; Breakdown voltage; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Junctions; Logic gates; Temperature measurement; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power and Energy Engineering Conference (APPEEC), 2011 Asia-Pacific

Conference_Location

Wuhan

ISSN

2157-4839

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-6253-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/APPEEC.2011.5749116

Filename

5749116