Development of a new short-circuit tester for 1.7kV high current power devices

The development of a new Short-Circuit (SC) tester for high current and high voltage power semiconductor devices is presented in this work. The proposed apparatus is provided with a Logical Control Unit (LCU) based on an FPGA digital circuit capable to control the system with 20ns programmable time resolution. The power side of the SC tester presents a series switch (SW) used to prevent undesired failure of the Device Under Test (DUT) and a 2.2mF capacitor bank designed with an optimized layout to strongly reduce parasitic stray inductance. Galvanic isolation between logical circuit and power side of the SC tester is ensured by using a custom optical fibers communication interface. Experimental measurements performed on commercial Trench-IGBTs (T-IGBTs) have confirmed the capability of the developed system to deliver high current pulses under supply voltage up to 1.7 kV.