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Ignacio Lizama

Steffen Bernet

Matti Laitinen

Rodrigo Alonso Alvarez Valenzuela

Matti Laiteinen

Rodrigo Alvarez

A method and apparatus are provided for balancing currents of two or more parallel-connected power semiconductor switches during an on-state of the switches. A control terminal of each switch is driven by a driver unit. The method includes determining ratios between the currents through the switches. For each switch, the method includes controlling the voltage at the control terminal on the basis of the ratios by controlling a level of a supply voltage of the driver unit of the switch, and after a turn-on commutation transient, modulating the output of the driver unit. The duty cycle of the modulation is controlled to minimize the time required for the transition of the voltage at the control terminal from the one voltage level to another.

Method and apparatus for balancing currents

Unique systems, methods, techniques and apparatuses of a reverse-conducting IGBT (RC-IGBT) are disclosed. One exemplary embodiment is a circuit comprising a series connection of controllable switch components where at least one of the controllable switch components is an RC-IGBT. The circuit is operated by applying a pre-trigger pulse to the gate electrode of the RC-IGBT during reverse conduction of the RC-IGBT at a first time instant, the pre-trigger pulse corresponding to a turn-on gate pulse. Next, a turn-on gate pulse is applied at a second time instant to the other controllable switch component of the series connection for controlling the other controllable switch component to a conductive state such that the pre-trigger pulse and the turn-on gate pulse overlap, and ending the pre-trigger pulse after a delay time at the third time instant. The delay time is the time period when the turn-on gate pulse and the pre-trigger pulse overlap.

Control of reverse-conducting IGBT

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Dresden, Germany

Ignacio Lizama