High temperature performance of field controlled thyristors

Measurements of the characteristics of Field Controlled Thyristors have been performed over a temperature range of -30°C to 200°C. These measurements demonstrate that field controlled thyristors exhibit superior high temperature forward blocking capability when compared with conventional thyristors. In addition to retaining their reverse blocking capability, these devices show an increase in the blocking gain with increasing ambient tempera-conduction behavior is similar to that of conventional rectifiers and the measured increase of the forced gate turn-off time in these devices with increasing temperature has been correlated with an increase in the minority carrier lifetime.