Characterization of a Multilevel HV-IGBT Module for Distribution Applications

A newly proposed 3-level high-voltage insulated-gate-bipolar-transistor (HV-IGBT) module has been developed and tested under static conduction, dynamic switching, and system level pulse-width-modulation (PWM) operation. The conduction voltage drops and switching turn-on and -off energies were measured for loss estimation. Switching voltage and current waveforms were used for parasitic inductance and output capacitance estimation. With sufficiently low parasitic inductance and fast switching speed, the module was successfully operating at 20-kHz switching for a multilevel converter based intelligent universal transformer (IUT), and the proposed multilevel HV-IGBT module is evidently the enabling technology for future utility distribution-level power electronics applications