INSULATED GATE BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS (IGBTs)

By our Editorial Staff nsulated Gate Bipolar Transistors are | aerigectopat and more widely. M od- ern drive system engineering would not be the same without these devices. IGB Tsare ideally suited t applications where high voltagescoupled with high currents must be switched. They are foundin voltage converters, heavy-duty controlcircuitsand audio power am- plifiers The first project that usedIG BTs was published in this magazine in December 1994 (1-to-3 phase converter). Noteworthy properties of IGB Ts are the ease of voltage control and the low losses at high voltages. These characteristics make one think of power MOSFETs. However, the effective on-resistance of IGBTs is signifi- cantly lower than that ofMOSFETS. The rel- evant symbok and equivalent circuits of n-doped and p-dopedIGB Tsareshown inF ig. 1.N ote, however, that the symbolsare (not yet) world- standardized, so that others

INSULATED GATE BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS (IGBTs) By our Editorial Staff nsulated Gate Bipolar Transistors are | aerigectopat and more widely. M od- ern drive system engineering would not be the same without these devices. IGB Tsare ideally suited t applications where high voltagescoupled with high currents must be switched. They are foundin voltage converters, heavy-duty controlcircuitsand audio power am- plifiers The first project that usedIG BTs was published in this magazine in December 1994 (1-to-3 phase converter) . Noteworthy properties of IGB Ts are the ease of voltage control and the low losses at high voltages. These characteristics make one think of power MOSFETs. However, the effective on-resistance of IGBTs is signifi- cantly lower than that ofMOSFETS. The rel- evant symbok and equivalent circuits of n-doped and p-dopedIGB Tsareshown inF ig. 1.N ote, however, that the symbolsare (not yet) world- standardized, so that others may be encoun- tered. W hen the gate-emitter potentialexceedsthe threshold, V¢pjty). à collector current flows. The current amplification, I, 4, ,ofanIGBT, isvery high: 10°, whichis possiblebecause the gatecurrent only needs to charge the effective input…