Design And Verification Of IGCT Turn-on And Turn-off Circuits

The integrated gate communated thyristor(IGCT)is a new type of high-power semiconductor device that cnsists of a gate commutated thyristor(GCT)and its gate drive unit integrated through a printed circuit board(PCB).IGCT has both a lower loss than GTO and a stronger over-current capability than IGBT,which has a wide range of applications.The GCT must work with the gate driver.Turn-on and turn-off the circuitin,the gate driver is the key to achieving " hard drive ".This article takes 4000A/4500V IGCT driver as the research object,designend its gate turn-on and tyrn-off circuit,and carried on the experimental verification,The main contents are as follows:Firstly,the GCT structure,working mechanism,the composition of the gate driver and its driving waveform are introduced,and on this basis,the design indexes of the IGCT turn-on and turn-off circuits are proposed.Secondly,basd on the indicators,the IGCT turn-on and turn-off circuits are designed and the principle of the IGCT turn-on and turn-off cireuit is describerd.Tbe selection of the component parameters is analyzed.The designed turn-on and turn-off circuits were simulated using Cadence 16.5 software.The diode and IGCT circyit simulation models were used to simulate and analyze the cireuits.And use Verilog language to write tuen-on and turn-off circuit timing to achieve power MOSFET on-off control.Finally,the influence of the stray inductance of the IGCT gate circuit on the "hard drive"and the factors affecting the stray inductance of the PCB are analyzed,The use of Altium Designer 15 software to properly layout the IGCT turn-on and turn-off circuit PCBs and compare the impact of the turn-off circuit using general-purpose and surround-type layouts on the PCB stray inductance.A test circuit was built and diode loads were used to verify the turn-on and turn-off circuits.The research results of this paper have certain reference value for the design and development of IGCT driver.