Characterization and comparison of high blocking voltage IGBTs and IEGTs under hard- and soft-switching conditions

The market continues to require IGBTs with higher blocking voltages to reduce the number of IGBTs connected in series in high voltage converters. To cope with these demands, semiconductor manufactures have developed several technologies. Nowadays, IGBTs up to 6.5 kV blocking voltage and IEGTs up to 4.5 kV blocking voltage are on the market. However, these IGBTs and IEGTs still have very high switching losses compared to low voltage devices, leading to a realistic switching frequency of up to 1 kHz. To reduce switching losses in high power applications, the Auxiliary Resonant Commutated Pole Inverter (ARCPI) is a possible alternative. In this paper, switching losses and on-state voltages of NPT-IGBT (3.3 kV–1200 A), FS-IGBT (6.5 kV–600 A), SPT-IGBT (2.5 kV–1200 A, 3.3 kV–1200 A and 6.5 kV–600 A) and IEGT (3.3 kV–1200 A) are measured under hard-switching and zero-voltage switching (ZVS) conditions. The aim of this selection is to evaluate the impact of ZVS on various devices of the same voltage ranges. In addition, the difference in ZVS effects among the devices with various blocking voltage levels is evaluated.