A self-isolated intelligent IGBT for driving ignition coils

A self-isolated intelligent IGBT for driving ignition coils has been developed for the first time. The device fits into a TO-220 package and monolithically integrates a vertical IGBT with NMOS driving and protection circuits by adding only 4 mask steps to the standard IGBT process. This intelligent IGBT survives an unclamped inductive switching energy of 300 mJ at T/sub j/=150/spl deg/C due to an advanced collector-current-ballasting-resistor technique, and it has eliminated the latching problem of parasitic thyristors located at integrated NMOS devices by a new Zener-resistor-networking protection technique. Excellent current-limiting operation under V/sub GE/=3.5 V driving has been realized by newly developed high-frequency gate-decoupling and collector-to-gate resistive feed-back techniques.