Desaturation Pulse-based Turn-off of Low-Saturation 1.2kV IGBTs for Reduced Turn-off Energy Losses

Inhalt:
In this paper, desaturation pulse-based turn-off measurement results with low-saturation 1.2kV IGBTs are presented. It is demonstrated through measurements with a hardware-based active clamping implementation in the gate driver, that an appreciable reduction in turn-off energy losses is achievable in low-saturation devices with a higher front-side plasma concentration. The necessary optimal desaturation duration and collector to emitter clamping voltage levels are determined to show its suitability to the 1.2kV class IGBTs. A comparison is made between the desaturation pulse-based turn-off measurements of 1.2kV and 3.3kV IGBT classes to obtain an insight into the clamping voltage levels as well as the required desaturation time to attain optimal reduction in turn-off energy losses.