Design And Verification Of IGCT Gate Holding And Logic Control Circuits

Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor (IGCT) is a new high power semiconductor device based on Gate Turn-off Thyristor (GTO), which has high voltage, low loss, fast switching speed,and turns off with the bufferless circuit for hard drive, etc..Thus it has a very good application prospect in the middle and high-voltage power electronic devices. The operating of IGCT must be realized by means of the integrated gate driver, so the design of the gate driver is especially important for the performance of IGCT.This paper take the 4kA/4.5kV IGCT as the research objects, the holding circuit and logic control circuit of the gate driver are designed. The main contents are as follows:Firstly, based on the gate drive current index, the holding circuit of IGCT during conduction are designed, and a closed loop feedback circuit is built, including the main module,the current detection module and the control module circuits. The design principles of each module circuit are analyzed, each module and the main of holding circuit are simulated by PSPICE software, and the results fulfill the design requirements.Secondly, the PCB board for the holding circuit is designed by Altium Designer software and the experimental test circuit is set up to verify control module and holding circuits.The simulation waveform are in good agreement with the measured waveform.Finally, the logic control circuit are designed according to the required functions for IGCT gate driver,including the input signal judgment module,the main drive circuit module and status display module. In order to realize the function of each module, the hardware description language is used to programmed by Quartus ? software, and the function is validatedsimulation by ModelSim software, and the timing logic fulfills design requirements.The research results can provide certain reference to design and develop of the IGCT driver.