Ruggedness of High-Voltage IGBTs and Protection Solutions by Thomas Basler Approved to obtain the degree of Doctor of Engineer. Technical University of Chemnitz

 Ruggedness of High-Voltage IGBTs and Protection Solutions by Thomas Basler Approved to obtain the degree of Doctor of Engineer. Technical University of Chemnitz 

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This work was supported by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information technology from the Technical University of Chemnitz as a dissertation Approved to obtain the degree of Doctor of Engineer. The work was written in English. Date of submission: September 10, 2013 Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Josef Lutz Prof. Dr. Steffen Bernet Dr. Roland Jakob Defense Day: February 28, 2014

ABSTRACT

Application-Oriented IGBT Requirements and Motivation of this Work

 This thesis was written at Chemnitz University of Technology in cooperation with General Electric Energy Power Conversion GmbH, former Converteam, in Berlin. Many of the tasks and problem-settings regarding the improvement of ruggedness of high-voltage IGBTs were derived directly from the industry partner and its 3-level medium-voltage converter application. This topology is widely used for industrial and traction applications [Ber00]. For the considered converter, 42-chip press-pack IGBTs with a voltage rating of 4.5 kV are used. The challenge was to investigate all possible IGBT short-circuit cases in this type of converter and to shift the complete converter protection concept to the optimum level. The interconnection between the gate unit and the IGBT and the surrounding circuit parameters like the stray and shortcircuit inductance were of special interest. In addition to the short-circuit topic, a solution should be found on how to protect the load of the converter (e.g. a large windmill generator) against asymmetric short-circuit currents and alternating torques, see Chapter 5. For this purpose, the surge-current mode of the IGBT is introduced and verified. It will be shown that this special mode can be handled by the IGBT without destruction or significant ageing. To meet the requirements and test conditions mentioned above, a singlechip test bench was constructed. New phenomena like the self-turn-off mechanism or special IGBT destructions under short-circuit and surge-current mode were studied in detail. Countermeasures were found to protect the IGBT and the complete power-electronic circuit and application from a possible destruction. 

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