Investigation On The Smart Thyristor For SPIC

Due to the PNPN structure characteristics,t thyristor type devices have strong current capability and low on-state voltage(V_ON)characteristics,making it a very attractive research hotspot in the field of high-power electronics.However,the saturation current of the conventional thyristor device is uncontrollable.At the same time,current concentration effect is easily happened because of it's positive feedback characteristic.Hence,its safe operating area is very poor.Furthermore,some thyristors?such as MCT?usually require negative voltage to turn off.This condition increases the difficulty and cost of the control circuit.For these issues,a novel shunt control smart power thyristor device?Smart Thyristor?is proposed in this paper,which combines the characterstics of thyristor device and MOS device.The main innovations and performance enhancements are as follows:A novel thyristor structure is proposed.It combines the characteristics of conventional thyristor devices and MOS devices,as well as the constant current source application of MOS structures,and using a shunt control of electron current and hole current.Compared with the conventional thyristor devices,Smart Thyristor device has higher safe operating area?SOA?and gate-controlled constant current characteristics in high-voltage and high-current operation situation,which improves the trade-off relationship and greatly enhances performance of the thyristor device.The SOA of Smart Thyristor is increased by11.4%and 19%,respectively,compared with the conventional IGBT at temperatures of 300K and 400 K.The V_ON of the Smart Thyristor is about 30%higher than that of IGBT when the E_off is 20 mJ/cm²,The E_off-V_ON trade-off is significantly better than the conventional IGBTs.On the basis described above,t the turn-on speed of the device is greatly improved by introduction of an intergrated NMOS structure inside the device as inherent characteristics,and turn-on speed is increased by 45%compared with the MCT.Besides,an integrated PMOS transistor is also introduced into the device to extract excess carriers during the turn-off process to achieve fast speed.Furthermore,the device can be turned off without negative voltage by utilizing the clamping effect inside the device structure,which reduces the design difficulty and complexity of the control circuit.Compared with MCT and IGBT,the speed of turn-off process of Smart Thyristor device is increased by 9.5%and 17.5%,respectively.