A study of GTBT characteristics driven by pulse current

This paper describes a novel technique to reduce the size and cost of a current source used in the gate drive circuit of a GTBT. A compact current source, capable of supplying gate current of up to 100 A and occupying the same area as that of a 600 V/600 A-class GTBT chip, and a drive circuit have been designed using the proposed technique, for possible implementation in an inverter module. Characteristics of the transistor driven by the newly developed circuit have been studied and found to agree well with estimations made with a charge-control model.