A new method for fast short circuit protection of IGBTs

Author

Lizama, Ignacio ; Alvarez, Rodrigo ; Bernet, Steffen ; Wagner, Martin

Author_Institution

Power Electron. Lab., Teschnische Univ. Dresden, Dresden, Germany

fYear

2014

Firstpage

1072

Lastpage

1076

Abstract

This paper presents a new, simple and low cost method for fast short circuit protection of IGBT modules. The principle of the method is to measure the voltage across the inductance between the power-emitter and the auxiliary-emitter. Moreover, by modulating the gate-signal, the new method reduces the gate emitter voltage V_GE in order to limit the short circuit current and allows the semiconductor to be operated in the safe operation area. The new concept has been implemented in a gate unit, which is controlled by an FPGA. The performance of the gate unit has been verified in a buck converter with an IGBT module FF1400R12IP4 of 1400 A/1200 V.

Keywords

field programmable gate arrays; insulated gate bipolar transistors; power convertors; FF1400R12IP4 module; FPGA; IGBT modules; auxiliary-emitter; buck converter; current 1400 A; fast short circuit protection; gate unit; gate-signal; low cost method; power-emitter; voltage 1200 V; Current measurement; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Junctions; Logic gates; Standards; Voltage control; Voltage measurement;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2014 - 40th Annual Conference of the IEEE

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IECON.2014.7048635

Filename

7048635