Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Asea Brown Boveri Ag

Simon Eicher

Ichiro Omura

Tsuneo Ogura

Koichi Sugiyama

Hiromichi Ohashi

Tomokazu Domon

Suzuo Saito

Friedhelm Bauer

According to this invention, there is provided a drive apparatus for a power device having high- and low-voltage main electrodes and a control electrode, including a circuit for decreasing a voltage of the control electrode to a voltage of the control electrode which is not higher than a threshold voltage of the power device before a voltage between the high- and low-voltage main electrodes enters an overshoot region in a case where the power device is to be turned off. Therefore, electron injection can be stopped before the voltage between the main electrodes rises, the stability of the current density can be improved, and current concentration, oscillation, and the like can be prevented to improve reliability.

Semiconductor device, drive method, and drive apparatus

A GTO is specified which, starting from the anode-side main surface (2), comprises an anode emitter (6), a barrier layer (11), an n-base (7), a p-base (8) and a cathode emitter (9). The anode emitter (6) is designed as a transparent emitter and has anode short-circuits (10). By virtue of the combination of the barrier layer, the transparent anode emitter and the anode short-circuits, a GTO is obtained which can be operated at high switching frequencies, the substrate thickness of which can be reduced and which nevertheless exhibits no increase in the switching losses.

Gate turn-off thyristor for high blocking voltage and small component

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Zurich, Switzerland

Simon Eicher