Licentia Patent-verwaltungs Gmbh

Hermann Berg

Heinrich Schlangenotto

Wolf-Dieter Nowak

The invention relates to a gate turn-off thyristor which includes, per unit cell, a cathode-side emitter strip and two anode-side spaced emitter strips which overlap in position with the edge of the cathode-side emitter strip. In such a GTO thyristor, the maximum disconnectable anode current greatly decreases during turn-off with increasing voltage rise rate, since the electrical fields developing in the non-regenerative transistor region centered underneath the cathode-side emitter strip are too high. Reduction of the field intensity occurring in the non-regenerative transistor region and thus reduction in the decrease of the maximum disconnectable anode current is realized, according to the invention, in that a p-type zone is disposed between the two anode-side emitter strips to dynamically limit the electrical field, with this p-type zone injecting holes to a lesser degree than the adjacent emitter strips and essentially only during turn-off of high currents.

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Eppstein, Germany

Hermann Berg