Investigation of an active gate drive concept for series connected GCTs

Series connection of GCT elements is commonly applied in the field of high power inverters. Currently, expensive RC-snubbers are necessary to overcome the problem of the asymmetric distribution of blocking voltages. Within this paper a new active gate drive concept to dispense with large snubbers is investigated by simulation with SABER(R). These simulations are based on a physical GCT-model, which has been created by the authors. Furthermore models from the library with realistic parameters for all other electronic components are used. Thus, simulation results with practical value can be achieved.