Rca Inc.

Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation

Jack Edward Wojslawowicz

Joseph Andrew Yedinak

Douglas Joseph Lange

Bernard J Czeck

Robert Baran

James Gillberg

Dwayne S Reichl

Ronald Robert Brooks

This document discusses, among other things, a system and method for detecting an open secondary condition in a secondary coil of an ignition coil using a control signal received from a control input of a switch configured to control the flow of current to a primary coil of the ignition coil. In an example, the flow of current in the primary coil of the ignition coil can be controlled using an insulated gate bipolar junction transistor (IGBT), and the open secondary condition in the secondary coil of the ignition coil can be detected using a received gate voltage of the IGBT.

Ignition system open secondary detection

An IGBT has striped cell with source stripes continuous or segmented along the length of the base stripe The opposite stripes are periodically connected together by the N&plus; contact regions to provide channel resistance along the width of the source stripes . For continuous stripes the resistance between two sequential contact areas is greatest in the middle and current concentrates near the source contact regions The wider the spacing between the contacts the larger the resistive drop to the midpoint between two N&plus; contacts

IGBT with channel resistors

An IGBT has a thick buffer region with increased doping to improve self-clamped inductive switching and device manufacture. A planar or trench gate IGBT has a buffer layer more than 25 microns thick. The buffer layer is doped high enough so that its carriers are more numerous than minority carriers, particularly at the transition between the N buffer & N drift region.

Thick buffer region design to improve IGBT self-clamped inductive switching (SCIS) energy density and device manufacturability

Gate-turn-off silicon controlled rectifiers (GTO's) are selectively rendered conductive to control the direction of rotation of a bi-directional motor. To this end a digital logic network is responsive to either one or both of a pair of remotely located switches being operated to either a first or a second condition, for controlling a transistorized gate signal generating network to apply an operating voltage to the gate electrode of the appropriate one(s) of the GTO's. The gate signal generating network includes circuitry for grounding the gates of the GTO's, turning them off if on and thereby inhibiting operation of the motor, whenever either of two operating conditions obtains. The first of these conditions occur when the switches are operated sequentially to be concurrently one in the first condition and the other in the second condition, and the second of these conditions is when one of the switches is returned from the first or second condition to a neutral condition with the other switch being in the neutral condition.

GTO bi-directional motor control circuit

A direct current motor which includes a stator for producing a fixed magnetic field and a plurality of armature windings. The motor is caused to rotate by applying current to each winding only while that winding is passing through a zone in a given orientation relative to the stator field. The direction of rotation is changed without changing the direction of the current applied to the windings, by changing the orientation of the zone relative to the stator field, to reverse the direction of the rotational force applied to the armature. Because the current does not reverse through the armature windings, the control circuit can be simple and in a preferred embodiment includes only two gate-turn-off silicon controlled rectifiers, a switch, and a resistor.

Direction reversing direct current motors and their control

A signal light control system for an automotive vehicle includes silicon-controlled-rectifiers of the gate-turn-off type (GTO), individual ones of which are used to selectively control the conduction of current to signal lamps mounted at the left-front, right-front, left-rear, and right-rear locations on the vehicle. A digital logic network is responsive to the conditions of the turn, hazard, and brake switches of the vehicle, and to the pulse train of a flasher circuit enabled during active conditions of the turn and hazard switches, for selectively applying appropriate control signals to the gate electrodes of the GTOs, to turn on and off the GTOs as required to operate the signal lamps during right and left turn conditions of the turn switch, braking of the vehicle, and the emergency condition of the hazard switch.

Growing community of inventors

Bayonne, NJ, United States of America

Jack Edward Wojslawowicz