An IGBT Turn-ON Concept Offering Low Losses Under Motor Drive dv/dt Constraints Based on Diode Current Adaption

In this paper, a new low-loss turn-on concept for the silicon insulated-gate bipolar transistor (Si-IGBT) in combination with silicon p-i-n diode is presented. The concept is tailored for two-level motor converters in the 100 kW to 1 MW range under the constraint that the output voltages slopes are limited in order to protect the motor windings. Moreover, analyses of the IGBT turn-on and diode reverse recovery voltage slopes are presented concluding that the diode reverse recovery is the worst case. The concept includes a low-cost measurement of the free-wheeling diode current and temperature by the gate driver without necessity of acquiring this information from the converter control board. By using this concept, the output dv/dt at the diode turn-off can be kept approximately constant regardless of the commutated current and junction temperature. Hence, the switching losses could be decreased for the currents and temperatures where the voltage slopes are lower when using a conventional gate driver optimized for the worst case. Moreover, results are shown for one such power semiconductor, showing a total switching loss reduction of up to 28% in comparison with a gate driver without current and temperature measurement. Finally, this concept is particularly suitable for high power semiconductor modules in half-bridge configuration which are recently proposed by several suppliers.