Technology Trends for Present and Future Turn-off Devices

Abstract:
The demand for high power Turn-off Devices (ToDs) has increased dramatically in recent years. This has been fuelled by the demand of energy savings and efficient process control and the need for ToDs results from the widespread use of large self-commutated inverters for motor drives, converters for renewable energy sources and Energy Management equipment. The required semiconductors are fast diodes, IGBTs and IGCTs and the development efforts have been clearly focused on these devices, leading to higher power devices with higher Safe Operating Area (SOA) and lower losses. This presentation will summarise the achievements so far and discuss future developments for these three product types.