This paper describes an experimental investigation of the di/dt failure mechanism of thyristors. The location of the initial turn-on region and the spread of the "on" region were observed on a specially designed thyristor having many monitoring electrodes. The turn-on process was studied for triggering by gate, by breakover, and by dv/dt. In many cases it was found that turn-on occurred at almost the same region, whether it was triggered by breakover or by dv/dt. This area coincided with the final holding position in the turn-off process. The di/dt capability of the thyristor was measured. It was found that the capabilities were almost the same for the three triggering methods. The destruction temperature in the di/dt test was estimated from the area of the burn-out spots and the energy dissipation.
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