Experimental and numerical study of the emitter turn-off thyristor (ETO)

The emitter turn-off thyristor (ETO) is a new family of high power semiconductor devices that is suitable for megawatt power electronics application. ETOs with voltage and current ratings of 4-6 kV and 1-4 kA, have been developed and demonstrated. And those power levels are the highest in silicon power devices and are comparable to those of the gate turn-off thyristor (GTO). Compared to the conventional GTO, the ETO has much shorter storage time, voltage controlled turn-off capability, and much larger reverse biased safe operation area (RBSOA). Furthermore, ETOs have a forward-biased safe operation area (FBSOA) that enables it to control the turn-on di/dt similar to an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). These combined advantages make the ETO based power system simpler in terms of dv/dt snubber, di/dt snubber, overcurrent protection, resulting in significant savings in the system cost. This paper presents experimental and numerical results that demonstrate the advantages of the ETO.