Large area (150mm) high voltage (6.5kV) reverse conducting IGCT

A large area (150mm) high voltage (6.5kV) Reverse Conducting-Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor (RC-IGCT) has been developed for low frequency high power electronics applications. The devices were fabricated with GCT to diode active area ratio of 1.4. The RC-IGCT wafers were designed with an outer ring gate structure to minimize the stray impedance for the gate signal and also to improve the thermal behavior of the device. In addition, the HPT+ (High Power Technology) platform has been employed in the GCT part to increase the safe operation area of the device (to achieve high controllable turn-off current capability). In this paper we present the measurement results of the 150mm, 6.5kV RC-IGCT during conduction and turn-off in both GCT (switch)- and diode-modes of operation. In addition, we have compared the technology trade-off curve of the 150mm, 6.5kV RC-IGCT with the state-of-the-art 6.5kV HiPak IGBT modules in switch-mode.

[1]  J. Donlon,et al.  A 6 kV/5 kA reverse conducting GCT , 2001, Conference Record of the 2001 IEEE Industry Applications Conference. 36th IAS Annual Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37248).

[2]  D. Cottet,et al.  The Corrugated P-Base IGCT - a New Benchmark for Large Area SQA Scaling , 2007, Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and IC's.

[3]  Neophytos Lophitis,et al.  Gate Commutated Thyristor With Voltage Independent Maximum Controllable Current , 2013, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[4]  E. Carroll,et al.  High-Power Hard-Driven GTO Module for 4.5 kV/3 kA Snubberless Operation , 1996 .

[5]  Philippe Ladoux,et al.  On the Potential of IGCTs in HVDC , 2015, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics.

[6]  Munaf Rahimo,et al.  Recent advancements in IGCT technologies for high power electronics applications , 2015, 2015 17th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE'15 ECCE-Europe).

[7]  Martin Arnold,et al.  High-Temperature Operation of HPT+ IGCTs , 2011 .

[8]  M. Rahimo,et al.  The field charge extraction (FCE) diode: a novel technology for soft recovery high voltage diodes , 2005, Proceedings. ISPSD '05. The 17th International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, 2005..

[9]  Mark Frecker,et al.  The Integrated Gate-Commutated Thyristor: A New High-Efficiency, High- Power Switch for Series or Snubberless Operation , 1997 .

[10]  Munaf Rahimo,et al.  3.3kV RC-IGCTs Optimized for Multi-Level Topologies , 2014 .

[11]  Munaf Rahimo,et al.  The 150 mm RC-IGCT: A device for the highest power requirements , 2014, 2014 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices & IC's (ISPSD).

[12]  Eric Carroll,et al.  A NEW RANGE OF REVERSE CONDUCTING GATE-COMMUTATED THYRISTORS FOR HIGH-VOLTAGE, MEDIUM POWER APPLICATIONS , 1997 .