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1. Introduction:
An Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) is a power semiconductor device,
which is widely used in power electronic applications such as uninterruptible power supplies, motor
drives and active filters. An IGBT combines certain advantages of a power Bipolar Junction
Transistor (BJT) and a power Metal Oxide Silicon Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET). An IGBT
can be driven easily and switched at high frequencies like a MOSFET. Further it has low on-state
loss and a high current density like a BJT.
For an IGBT based converter to be rugged and reliable, the IGBT gate-drive circuit
should be reliable. In this paper, a gate-drive circuit for an IGBT is presented. The drive circuit is
capable of protecting the IGBT against short-circuit. During fault, excessive current flows through
the device, causing the device to come out of saturation and increasing the collector-emitter voltage
Vce. The gate-drive circuit senses a fault through the increased Vce drop [1]-[5], and shuts down the
gate pulses. The drive circuit also protects the IGBT from gate-emitter over-voltage [6]-[8].
Further, if the on-state gate-emitter voltage decreases, the on-state drop of the device increases,
leading to increased loss and possible device failure [6]-[9]. The proposed circuit is capable of
protecting the device from gate-emitter under-voltage as well.
The proposed IGBT gate-drive circuit is tested both under normal condition and
short-circuit condition. The switching characteristics include gate-emitter voltage Vge, collector-
emitter voltage Vce and device current Ic. While Vge and Vce can be measured, there are difficulties
in sensing Ic in many practical situations. A current probe of appropriate bandwidth may not be
available or may be too expensive. More importantly, it may not be possible to insert a current
probe in series with the device owing to the sandwich bus-bar structure. Such a bus-bar structure is
to ensure low parasitic inductance in order to avoid excessive over-voltage spikes that could cause
device failure [1]. Owing to such practical difficulties, this paper adopts a testing method which
does not require any current sensing.
Section 2 of this paper briefly discusses the gate-drive requirements. An IGBT gate-
drive circuit is presented in section 3. Section 4 of this paper discusses the experimental set-up.
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Section 5 and section 6 present the experimental results under normal condition and short-circuit
condition, respectively. The conclusions are presented in section 7.
2. Requirement of a gate-drive circuit:
A gate-drive circuit should have certain features, which help a power electronic
system to be rugged and reliable, as discussed below.
The drive circuit should provide adequate on-state gate-emitter voltage. Also the off-
state gate-emitter voltage should be well below the threshold voltage [6]-[9]. Even though the
IGBT is a voltage controlled device, an adequate amount of gate-drive current is required for a
short duration during turn-on/off as indicated by Fig. 1 and 2, because the device has a large input
capacitance [10]. The gate-drive circuit should be capable of supplying the peak current required
for effective turn-on/off.
For safe operation of the device, the gate-emitter voltage should not exceed the
absolute maximum gate-emitter voltage [6]. An over-voltage protection is required in this regard.
Also, lower value of on-state Vge significantly increases the on-state voltage drop of IGBT [6]. The
increased conduction loss could lead to device failure. The circuit should also be capable of
protecting the device against such failure on account of Vge under-voltage. Further, it should also
have the capability to protect an IGBT against short-circuit. Under short-circuit condition, an IGBT
can withstand a fault current of roughly eight to nine times of its rated current for 10 s [7]. The
gate-drive circuit should have the capability to sense the fault and turn-off the IGBT well within 10
s. The following conditions have to be fulfilled to guarantee safe operation [7];
i. The short-circuit has to be detected and turned off within a maximum of 10 s,
ii. The time between two short-circuits has to be at least 1 second,
iii. The IGBT must not be subjected to more than 1000 short-circuits during its total operation time.
The gate-drive circuit should provide isolation between the control side and the
power side of the system. The high voltages in the power circuit should not reach the control circuit
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for safety of personnel and equipment. Further, in a voltage source inverter, the pulse width
modulation signals for all six devices are generated in a controller (typically a digital controller).
These signals have to be fed between gate and emitter terminals of the individual devices. The
emitter terminals of different devices are at different potentials. Hence electric isolation is required
between the control circuit and power circuit [5]. Further, the drive circuit should have an on-board
isolated power supply to power the isolated side of the circuit.
Vg
Vge
Ic
Vce
I0
Vce,sat
VGG
VGG
tr
tfv1
tfv2
t
t
t
t
Vge(th)
Vge,I0
Vf1
Td,on
Ig
Fig. 1 Turn-on characteristics of IGBT [10]
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Vg
Vge
Ic
Vce
I0
Vce,sat
- VGG
- VGG
Td,off
trv
tfi1
tfi2
t
t
t
t
Vge(th)
Vge,I0
VD
If1
tfIg
Fig. 2 Turn-off characteristics of IGBT [10]
An IGBT gate-drive circuit with the above features is presented in the following
section.
3. Proposed gate-drive circuit:
Fig. 3 shows a block diagram of the proposed gate-drive circuit. Fig. 4 presents the
circuit schematic of the same. The gate-drive circuit is powered by a +15V dc power supply. The
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drive signal and Vce sensing signal are the inputs to the drive circuit, while the gate-emitter voltage
Vge and the status signals are the outputs, as indicated in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Block diagram of a gate-drive circuit
3.1 Isolation:
The drive signal is electrically isolated using an opto-coupler HP3101, (U1) [11], as
shown in Fig. 4. The status signal, produced by the gate-drive circuit as will be explained in section
3.4, is similarly isolated using another opto-coupler (U6). An isolated power supply is used to feed
the isolated (power) side of the circuit, indicated by dashed lines in Fig. 3.
3.2 Drive:
When the gate-drive signal is HIGH, the corresponding output of the opto-coupler,
U1 [11], is also HIGH. This isolated drive signal is fed to a logic circuit, which is simply a
NAND gate (U3/4), as seen from Fig. 4. The other input to the NAND gate is the isolated status
signal (Status_Iso) produced by the protection circuit as indicated in Fig. 3.
The output of the NAND gate drives an inverting buffer (U4), MIC4429 [12], and a
non-inverting buffer (U5), MIC4420 [12]. The output of the non-inverting buffer is connected to
the emitter terminal as shown in Fig. 4. The output of the inverting buffer is connected to the gate
terminal through gate resistance Rg. Sometimes, the gate resistance required for turn-on and turn-
off transitions are different. In Fig. 4, R16 is Rg,on, while R17 is Rg,off.
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++
1
4
2
7,6
8
5
1
4
2
7,6
8
5
R1 C1
R2
R3
R4
R5
R6D1
R7
Z1
R8
R9
R10
R11
R12
R13
R14
Z2
R15
R16
R17D2
D3
C8 C10
C9 C11
C6
C7
R18
R19
R20
R27 C23
C12
Q1
Q2
13
1211
108
94
5
6
31
2
7
14C5
13
11
1016
7
C15
R24
LD1
C13
POT1
C14R22
R23
R26
R21
D5
Q3
T1
C15
D4
C16
C17
C18
R25
LD2
C19
31 2
2,12,15
3
14
5
6
8,11
1,4,7,9
10,13,16
U1
U2/1
U2/2
U3/1
U3/2 U3/3
U3/4
U4
U5
U6
U7
U8 +15V_ISO
GND_ISO
+15V
GND
PWM
C'STATUS
G'
E'
NI
I
LED
ON
OFF
O/P
H
L
G'
E'
J2
C'
J3
+15V
GND
PWM
STATUS
J1
C3
2
3
8
5
6
7
2
3
8
5
6
7
C22
C2
3
12
C4
+15V_ISO+15V_ISO
+15V_ISO
+15V
+15V
GND
GND_ISO
GND_ISO
GND_ISO
TP4
TP1
TP5
TP6
TP7
TP8
TP9
TP11
TP10
TP12TP3
TP13
TP14
TP15
TP16 TP17
TP18
C20
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4 (a) Gate-drive Card (b) Zener Card
Under healthy condition, if the drive signal is HIGH, then the output of the NAND
gate (U3/4) is LOW. Correspondingly, the voltage at the gate terminal is HIGH (due to inverting
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buffer), and the voltage at the emitter terminal is LOW (due to non-inverting buffer). This results
in the gate-emitter voltage being +15V. Similarly, when the drive is LOW or the opto-coupler
output is LOW, the Vge applied is -15 V.
A 10 F WIMA capacitor [13] is connected to each of the two buffers as
recommended in the datasheet of the inverting and non-inverting buffers [12]. The driver stage
made up of these two buffers is capable of supplying a peak current of up to 6A.
3.3 Protection:
The on-state Vge equals the output of the isolated power supply. Hence, if the power
supply output decreases for some reason, the on-state Vge also reduces correspondingly. This could
lead to a high on-state Vce drop as measured earlier [6]-[9]. A comparator circuit based on LM339,
(U2/2) [14], is used to detect such a situation. The status signal (Status_Iso) is made LOW if the
voltage is less than 13 V.
To protect the IGBT from Vge over-voltage, two back-to-back connected zener
diodes are used as shown in Fig. 4(b). Since these should be very close to the gate and emitter
terminals of the device, these are assembled on a separate board, called zener card, which sits on
the gate and emitter terminals of the device.
The zener card also contains a fast-recovery diode, which is used to sense the
collector voltage for short-circuit protection, based on de-saturation technique. When current
through the device increases, Vce increases as stated earlier. The collector voltage is sensed using a
fast-recovery diode, D6, and is fed to the non-inverting terminal (C ') of a comparator, LM339
(U2/1) [14]. A zener, Z1, provides the reference voltage corresponding to allowable Vce
for safe
operation. The reference voltage is set at 6.2 V here. Under healthy condition, the output of the
comparator is LOW. When the voltage at terminal C ' (due to increase in Vce) goes beyond the
reference voltage, the output of the comparator becomes HIGH, indicating a fault.
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3.4 Status Signal:
The comparator circuit (U2/1) detects a short-circuit or a fault whenever the gate-
drive is high and Vce is greater than 6.2 V. This could happen during the turn-on transition of the
device, when the gate-drive is HIGH and the Vce is yet to reduce below the reference voltage.
Hence the status signal is held HIGH for a short duration after the gate-drive has a low-to-high
transition, regardless of the collector voltage. This short duration of time is termed blanking time
(Fig. 3). To achieve this, the isolated drive signal is delayed by R5 and C3, as shown in Fig. 4. This
is fed to a NAND gate (U3/1), along with the output of the comparator (U2/1), as shown in Fig. 4.
When there is neither Vce fault nor Vge under-voltage, the isolated status signal
(Status_Iso in Fig. 3), available at the output of NAND gate (U3/3), is HIGH. The status is
LOW, when there is a Vce fault or Vge under-voltage. This signal is fed to the opto-coupler (U6),
and is available as the status signal, which is an output of the gate-drive circuit. This signal can be
used by a central protection circuit to shut down the pulses to all the IGBTs in a converter in the
event of a fault [15].
3.5 Isolated Power Supply:
The power supply to the isolated side (power circuit side) is provided by a fly-back
converter as mentioned earlier. The fly-back converter has a two winding inductor, whose windings
are electrically isolated. The details of the inductor are given in Table-I. The switching device used
is a MOSFET (Q3), IRFZ44 [16]. A MOSFET driver TL494 (U7) [17] drives the MOSFET at a
frequency of 80 kHz and a duty ratio of 0.45. The output of the fly-back converter is regulated
using a linear regulator LM7815, (U8) [18]. The specification of this converter is +15 V output,
0.4A average current and 2.5A peak current. In the diagram in Fig. 4, the nodes connected to the
isolated power supply (+15V_ISO) are indicated by a thick circle dot. The nodes connected to the
control side supply (+15V) are indicated by a thick square-shaped dot.
The components details for the gate-drive card and zener card are given in Table-I.
Details of the design of the drive circuit are available in reference [15].
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Table-I: Bill of Materials
Sl no Part Name Value Quantity Description
1 C14 2.2nF 1 Disc capacitor
2 C13,C17,C19,C20 0.1F 4 Disc capacitor
3 C15,C18,C16 10 F 3 Electrolyte capacitor
4 R22 4.7k, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
5 POT1 10 k, 0.25W 1 POT
6 R23 8.2, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
7 R26 220, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
8 R21 1 k,1W 1 Metal Film Resistor
9 D1, D2, D3, D5,D4 1N4148 5 Diode
10 Q3 IRFZ44 1 MOSFET
11 U7 UC494 1 Pulse generator
12 U8 LM7815 1 Positive voltage regulator
13 T1EE25/9/6, 56:70,
Lp=544H1 Fly-back transformer
14 R1, R27 820, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
15 R2, R18, R10 15 k, 0.25W 3 Metal Film Resistor
16 R3, R19 6.8 k, 0.25W 2 Metal Film Resistor
17 R4, R20 1.2 k, 0.25W 2 Metal Film Resistor
18 R5 4.7 k, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
19 R6 82, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
20 R7, R14 330, 0.25W 2 Metal Film Resistor
21 R8, R9, R15 2.2 k, 0.25W 3 Metal Film Resistor
22 R11, R12,R24 10 k, 0.25W 2 Metal Film Resistor
23 R13 680 k, 0.25W 1 Metal Film Resistor
24 R16, R17 27, 0.25W 2 Metal Film Resistor
25 C1, C23 10nF 1 Disc capacitor
26C2, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8,
C9, C12,C22100nF 8 Disc capacitor
27 C3 1nF 1 Disc capacitor28 C10, C11 1000nF 2 WIMA Capacitor
29 U1, U6 HCPL3101 2 Optical Isolator
30 U2 LM339 1 Comparator
31 U3 CD4011 1 Quad NAND gate
32 U4 MIC4429 1 Inverting Buffer
33 U5 MIC4420 1 Non-inverting Buffer
34 Q1, Q2 2N2222 2 NPN transistor
35 Z1 6.2V, 0.5W 1 Zener Diode
36 Z2 4.7V, 0.5W 1 Zener Diode
37 Z3, Z4 15 V, 0.5 W 2 Zener Diode
38 D6 MUR1100E 1 Fast recovery diode
39 R28 100 k, 0.25 W 1 Metal Film Resistor
4. Experimental set-up:
The experimental set up for testing the gate-drive circuit under normal operating
condition as well as short-circuit condition is shown in Fig. 5. The drive circuit is tested on a
SEMIKRON make half-bridge IGBT module SKM75GB123D [6]. The top device is switched as a
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chopper, while the bottom device is kept off by shorting its gate and emitter terminals as shown in
Fig. 5(a). The anti-parallel diode of the lower IGBT acts as the free-wheeling diode.
Pre-charging resistors (RD) are used to limit the high charging current during initial
charging of the dc capacitors. Subsequently, once the capacitors are charged close to the steady
state value, these resistors are shorted and by-passed by the contactor shown in Fig. 5(a).
Vdc/2
Vdc/2
SW
1
2, 7
3
4
5
6
LOAD
3 Ph
Supply
Gate
driver
Q1
Q2
RD
Fig. 5 (a) Experimental set-up: power circuit
Gate DriverProtection and
Delay card
Status
Signal
Drive
Signal
G
E
CPWM Signal
Generator
Fig. 5 (b) Control circuit
To test the short-circuit protection feature of the gate-drive circuit, a switch (SW) is
connected across the load as shown in Fig. 5(a). Once the load is shorted, the device is expected to
be turned off in less than 10 s by the drive circuit. This duration is much smaller than the charging
cycle of the capacitors through the rectifier. The fault current is driven by the stored energy in the
capacitors, and is not drawn from the mains. Hence the fuses are rated for normal operation (10 A).
For some reasons, if the device is not switched off in less than 10 s or in the event of any other
persistent fault, the fuses serve to isolate the power circuit from the mains.
The control side of the set-up is shown in Fig. 5(b). The PWM signal is generated
using a square wave oscillator or a function generator. The drive signal is fed to the protection and
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delay card, which incorporates several protection features required for a voltage source inverter
[15]. The main function of this card here is to latch the status signal produced by the gate-drive card
whenever the signal goes low (unhealthy condition), and prevent further pulses being fed to the
gate-drive card.
5. Test under normal condition:
The IGBT gate-drive circuit is first tested under normal condition with the Semikron
make SKM75GB120D device switched as a chopper. The gate resistances Rg,on and Rg,offare both
22 as recommended in the datasheet [6]. The load is a coil having a resistance of 60.
Fig.6 Turn-on characteristics of IGBT with Rg,on=22 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div], Channel-2:
Vce [250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
5.1 Turn-on characteristic:
The experimental turn-on characteristics of the IGBT are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7.
The gate-emitter voltage Vge and collector-emitter voltage Vce during turn-on are shown in Fig. 6,
while Fig. 7 shows the gate current during turn-on.
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Theoretically, as explained in text book [10], when the drive signal goes high
(+15V), the gate-emitter voltage Vge rises exponentially from -15 V to Vge,I0, which is effectively
the steady voltage in the Miller plateau region as shown in Fig. 1. The response has a time constant
of Rg*(Cge+Cgc) [10]. However, according to Semikron application manual [7], Vge rises with three
distinct slope in three different intervals to reach the Miller Plateau level, Vge,I0. These slopes are
seen in the measured Vge, shown in Fig. 6. As seen from the figure, Vge rises initially with a steep
slope for a very short duration (less than 50 ns), followed by a moderate slope over a longer
duration (200-300 ns). Finally, for a duration of 100 ns approximately, Vge rises with an
intermediate value of slope to reach Vge,I0. The measured Vge shows a spike during the first interval,
which could be attributed to parasitic inductances and PCB layout. This spike is not of serious
concern since it is much below the threshold voltage.
While the freewheeling diode is turning off, it draws a significant amount of reverse
recovery current from the DC bus through the device [10]. This reverse recovery current results in
certain overshoot in the Vge characteristics at the starting of Miller Plateau region as shown in Fig.
6. In the Miller plateau region, Vge remains constant at Vge,I0. The observed Vge, I0 is roughly 8.5 V,
which is close to but less than the indicated value of 10 V in the datasheet [6]. This could be
attributed to the load current being fairly low (roughly 15% of the rated current). Since Vge, I0
increases with load current [19], it could be expected to be higher for load currents close to the
rated device current. There are some oscillations in Vge in this region due to stray inductances.
These oscillations reduce with increase in Rg,on as will be shown later in this section.
The turn-on transition is characterized by four switching intervals, namely turn-on
delay time (td,on), collector current rise time (tr), and collector-emitter voltage fall times (tfv1 and
tfv2), as illustrated in Fig. 1. Out of these switching intervals, td,on andtr are very important and are
usually specified in the datasheet [6].
According to Semikron apllication manual [7] and ABB application note [8], the
turn-on delay time is defined as the time interval, measured from the instant when the gate-emitter
voltage (Vge) reaches 10% of its final value to the instant the collector current (ic) increases to 10%
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of the load current. The rise time, according to [7] and [8], is defined as the time interval following
the turn-on delay, during which ic increases from 10% to 90% of the load current. Alternatively, the
turn-on delay time and collector current rise time could be defined based on the gate-emitter
voltage [10]. The turn-on delay time (td,on) can be measured from the instant gate-emitter voltage
starts rising to the instant gate-emitter voltage is equal to the threshold voltage (when collector
current starts rising). Similarly, the rise time (tr) is defined as the interval starting when Vge= Vge,th
extending up to the beginning of the Miller plateau region, i.e., Vge=Vge,Io. These alternative
definitions based on Vge are used in this work to measure td,on and tr. For an Rg,on of 22, the
measured td,on is 270 ns, and the measured tr is around 50 ns as seen from Fig. 6.
Fig.7 Gate-drive current [22V:1A] during turn-on with Rg,on=22.
The collector-emitter voltage (Vce) fall times, tfv1 and tfv2, illustrated in Fig. 1, are
usually not specified in the datasheet. But the interval tfv1 is useful for switching loss calculation,
since collector-emitter voltage is still significant during this interval. The interval t fv2 completes the
turn-on transition. If this interval is too long and Vce is not low enough, the Vce sensing circuit
could sense this as a short-circuit, leading to nuisance trip. The blanking time has to be significantly
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higher than the total turn-on transition time (including tfv2) to avoid such nuisance trip. As the
device voltage reduces to very close to Vce,sat by the end of the Miller Plateau region [10], the
duration of the Miller Plateau can be taken as (t fv1+tfv2). From the captured waveform (Fig. 6), the
measured (tfv1+tfv2), or the total time duration of the Miller plateau region, is around 800 ns. It is
seen that the complete turn-on time of the device is 1120 ns for a gate resistance of 22.
The gate current during turn-on is presented in terms of the voltage across the gate
resistance Rg,on in Fig. 7. Theoretically, the peak current is expected to be 30V/22 =1.36 A.
However, the measured peak value is around 0.93A. One could observe a pulse of high gate current
for a duration of around 300 ns, which is effectively the sum of turn-on delay time and collector
current rise time. As in Vge, oscillations are observed in the Miller plateau region. In this region, the
measured gate current is very close to its theoretical value, i.e., (15-10)/22 0.2A.
(a) (b)
Fig. 8 (a) Turn-on characteristics of IGBT with Rg,on=10 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div], Channel-2:
Vce [250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
(b) Turn-on characteristics of IGBT with Rg,on= 47 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div], Channel-
2: Vce [250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
Table II: Measured turn-on switching intervals for different values of gate resistance.
Rg, td,on, ns tr,on , ns (tfv1+tfv2) , ns Total Turn-on time, ns
10 150 40 600 790
22 270 50 800 1120
27 380 50 900 1330
47 500 60 1450 2010
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An experimental study is carried out on the variation of various switching times with
Rg,on. Fig. 8(a) and Fig. 8(b) show the turn-on characteristics of the device with gate turn-on
resistances of 10 and 47, respectively. The various measured switching intervals are presented
in Table-II. It is seen that the switching intervals during turn-on greatly depend on gate resistance.
In particular, td,on and (tfv1+tfv2) increase significantly with increase in gate resistance. The total
turn-on time, which is effectively the time interval between the instant when Vge starts to increase
from -15V and the instant when Miller plateau ends, also increases with increase in gate turn-on
resistance. When the total turn-on transition time becomes close to the blanking time, the chances
of nuisance trip increase. In fact, increase in the nuisance trip with increase in R g,on has already
been reported based on experimental study in an earlier publication [1].
It is also observed that the initial spike, when gate-emitter voltage starts rising from -
15 V, is less for 47 of gate resistance compared to 10 of gate resistance. Similarly the three
slopes observed between Vge=-15V and Vge= Vge,I0, are also reduced with increase in Rg,on. The
oscillation in the Miller plateau region decreases significantly with increase in gate resistance as
seen from Fig. 8.
5.2 Turn-off characteristic:
Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 show the experimental turn-off characteristics of the IGBT. The
gate-emitter voltage Vge and the collector-emitter voltage Vce during turn-off are shown in Fig. 9,
while Fig. 10 shows the gate current during turn-off.
Theoretically, the Vge is expected to decrease exponentially as in a first order
system [10]. However, there are two distinct stages seen during the reduction of Vge from +15 V to
the Miller plateau value of Vge,I0 [7]. Fig. 9 shows a very steep slope (for 30 ns approximately),
followed by a relatively lower slope for 100 ns approximately. During the first slope, spikes are
seen due to parasitic elements.
In the Miller plateau region, the Vge observed is about +7 V as against the datasheet
value of +10 V. As discussed in section 5.1, the Miller plateau voltage is low due to low collector
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current. After the Miller plateau region, there are some oscillations in Vge as it goes negative. These
oscillations decrease with increase in Rg,offas shown later in this section. Since these oscillations are
well below the threshold voltage, these do not affect the turn-off process.
Fig. 9 Turn-off Characteristics of IGBT with Rg,off=22 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div] vs. time,
Channel-2: Vce [250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
The turn-off transition is also characterized by four switching intervals, namely turn-
off delay time (td,off), collector-emitter voltage rise time (trv), and collector current fall times (tfi1 and
tfi2), as illustrated in Fig. 2. Out of these intervals, td,offandtfi1 (which is usually denoted as tf)are
very important, and are usually specified in the datasheet [6].
According to [7] and [8], the turn-off delay time (td,off) is defined as the time
interval, measured from the instant when the gate voltage is 90 % of its initial value to the instant
when the collector current is 90 % of its initial value (before the transition). The fall time (t f) is
defined as the time interval during which the collector current reduces from 90 % to 10 % of its
initial value [7, 8]. One practice is to connect the points at which the collector current is 90% and
60% of its initial value on the current oscillogram by a straight line, and extend it to 10% of the
initial value. The duration over which this straight line falls from 90% to 10% is regarded as the fall
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time [8].Alternatively, according to [10], the turn-off delay time (td,off) is defined as the time
interval between the instant when Vge starts decreasing and the instant when V ce starts to rise. The
collector-emitter voltage rise time (trv), which is a part of td,off as per [7] and [8], is defined in [10]
as the time interval during which the collector voltage rises from Vce,sat to the full dc bus voltage.
The turn-off delay time (td,off) observed is around 300 ns, and trv is around 400 ns, for Rg,off=22.
After the voltage rises to its full value, the collector current starts falling with
different slopes during two different intervals (tfi1 and tfi2) as shown in Fig. 2. These intervals t fi1
and tfi2 are important for switching loss calculation. Also, the total turn-off time depends on these
two parameters. As the device current cannot be sensed, the current fall times (tfi1 and tfi2) cannot be
measured individually. However, the total current fall time (tfi1 + tfi2) can be measured as the time
interval starting from the instant when Vce rises to its full dc bus voltage to the instant when Vge
goes to -15V. From Fig. 9, the measured total current fall time is 1.6 s and the turn-off process is
completed within 2.3 s.
Fig.10 Gate-drive current [22V:1A] during turn-off with Rg,off=22
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The gate current during turn-off is presented in terms of the voltage across turn-off
gate resistor, Rg,off, as shown in Fig. 10. The peak gate turn-off current is 0.98 A, while it is
expected to be 1.36A. Theoretically, gate turn-off current at Miller Plateau is [10-(-15)]/22= 1.14A,
but the measured current is around 0.84A.
(a) (b)
Fig. 11 (a) Turn-off characteristics of IGBT with Rg,off=10 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div],
Channel-2: Vce [250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
(b) Turn-off characteristics of IGBT with Rg,off=47 (Channel-1: Vge [5 volts/div], Channel-2: Vce
[250 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
Table III: Measured turn-off switching intervals for different values of gate resistance.
Rg, td,off, ns trv,off, ns (tfi1+tfi2), ns Total Turn-on time, ns
10 200 250 1300 175022 300 400 1600 2300
27 400 380 2200 2980
47 600 410 3300 4310
As in turn-on transition, the variation of various switching times with R g,off during
turn-off transition is also studied experimentally. Fig. 11(a) and Fig. 11(b) show the turn-off
characteristics of the device with gate turn-off resistances of 10 and 47, respectively. Table-III
presents the various switching time intervals for different values of gate turn-off resistances,
namely 10, 22, 27 and 47. It is seen that the switching intervals during turn-off vary with
variation of gate turn-off resistance, Rg,off. The various switching times along with total turn-off
time (time taken to fall Vge from +15 V to -15 V) increase with increase in gate turn-off resistance,
Rg,off. The magnitude of the initial spike, when gate-emitter voltage starts falling from +15 V,
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decreases with increase in gate turn-off resistance as seen from Fig. 11. Also, with increase in gate
resistance, there is some reduction in the oscillations when Vge goes to negative value.
The measured switching times tally reasonably well with the values indicated in
datasheet for Rg=22 both during turn-on and turn-off.
6. Test under short-circuit condition:
Short-circuit protection scheme is concerned with the protection of the entire system
by switching off the power transferring devices within the maximum allowable time for which the
devices can carry the short-circuit current.
The IGBT can be subjected to two types of faults. A fault can occur when the device
is conducting, and this is called fault under load (FUL). In the other case, the IGBT is gated on into
a fault. This is known as hard switched fault (HSF). A device has to be protected from both types of
faults, i.e., FUL and HSF. The fault is detected by de-saturation technique as explained in section
3.3.
6.1 Hard switched fault:
The experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 6. The load is a coil of 60 resistance.
With the gate pulses turned off, the dc bus is charged to 600V, and the manual switch SW is closed
to short the load. The gate pulses are then turned on. Now, the device turns on into a short-circuit.
When the gate pulse goes high, a blanking time is provided as discussed in section-
3.4. During this blanking time, any fault is ignored and the status signal is maintained high. The
blanking time should be higher than the device turn-on time and lower than 10 s as shown in (1).
( )1TTs10TTT dgoffturnblankdgonturn )()( +
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Fig. 12 Voltage across gate and emitter terminal, Vge, with collector terminal left open.
Fig. 12 shows the voltage across the gate and emitter terminals when the collector voltage
sensing terminal of the gate-drive card (C of Fig. 4(a)) is kept open. The time interval starting from
the instant when Vge starts rising from -15V to the instant when Vge starts decreasing from +15V is
the blanking time. As seen from Fig. 12, the drive circuit is set to provide a blanking time of 4.5 s.
In the event of a HSF, the gate voltage is turned off soon after the blanking interval as seen
from Fig. 12 to Fig. 14. Fig. 13 and Fig. 14 present the transients under short-circuit condition with
Rg = 22 and Rg = 47, respectively.
Fig. 13(a) shows the measured Vge and the voltage across the device during short-circuit.
The corresponding measured voltage across the shorting switch SW is shown in Fig. 13(b). As the
device is turned on into a fault and the short-circuit protection scheme is disabled during the
blanking time, the gate-drive circuit does not respond to the fault immediately. During the blanking
time, the device is on and the current through the device increases. The voltage across the device
(Vce) decreases initially, but subsequently starts increasing due to the fault as seen from Fig. 13(a).
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As Vce is greater than the reference voltage (6.2 volts), the gate-drive circuit senses a fault and the
gate voltage is turned off soon after the blanking time ends.
When Vge is reducing, an over-voltage spike is observed in the device voltage V ce due to
high di/dt and stray inductance in the power circuit. Once Vge becomes low, the device voltage is
equal to the dc bus voltage, and the switch is totally off.
Fig. 13 (a) Turn-off transient under short-circuit condition (HSF) when Rg,off= 22. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 V/div], Channel -2: Vce [250 V/div], horizontal axis: 1s/div)
Fig. 13(b) shows the measured Vge and the voltage across the shorting switch, Vsw,
during the short-circuit. The shorting switch presents itself as an inductance Lsw to the short-circuit
current. Hence the voltage across the switch essentially indicates the rate of change of the short-
circuit current. The current rises at a fast rate, and eventually saturates in a few microseconds.
Fig. 13(b) shows that Vge starts decreasing after around 4.5 s. The time taken to turn off
the device after the fault is detected is approximately 1.5 s. The total time taken to make Vge = -15
volts from the turning on instant is approximately 6 s, which is quite less than the short-circuit
current withstand time (10 s) of the IGBT.
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Fig. 13(b) Turn-off transient under short-circuit condition (HSF) when Rg,off= 22. (Channel-1:
Vge [20 volts/div], Channel -2: voltage across shorting switch, SW [50 volts/div], horizontal axis:
1s/div)
A few hundred of microseconds after the pulse is made low, the measured V ge is seen to be
increasing for a short while, before eventually settling down to -15V, as shown by Fig. 13(a) and
Fig 13(b). In other words, the device tends to re-turn on while being switched off after the detection
of fault. This is due to the consequently high dv/dt of the collector-emitter voltage and
displacement current flows through the gate-collector capacitance, which increases the gate-emitter
voltage [7].
The same experiment is carried out with a gate resistance of 47. The results are presented
in Fig. 14(a) and Fig. 14(b). The tendency of the device to re-turn on is very much reduced now.
But the complete turn-off time of the device after fault is detected is 3 s, which is higher than that
with a gate turn-off resistance of 22. The over-voltage spike is also very much reduced now.
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Fig. 14(a) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (HSF) when Rg,off= 47. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: Vce [1000 volts/div], horizontal axis: 1s/div)
Fig. 14(b) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (HSF) when Rg,off= 47. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: voltage across shorting switch, SW [50 volts/div], horizontal axis:
1s/div)
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6.2 Fault under load:
This experiment is conducted on the same test set up, shown in Fig. 5. Initially the
SW switch is kept OFF. When the IGBT (upper) is in conduction, the SW switch is closed, and
the load is shorted. The short-circuit causes the collector current to increase steeply, with a di/dt
determined by DC-link voltage Vdc and the inductance of the short-circuit loop.
Fig. 15(a) shows the transients in Vge and Vce during FUL for a gate resistance of
22. As the fault has been created during the on period of the device, the gate-drive circuit does
not have to wait due to blanking time to react. Soon after the fault is created, V ce increases rapidly.
When Vce increases beyond the reference voltage set in the circuit (6.2V), the gate-drive circuit
senses a short-circuit, and switches the device off as seen from Fig. 15.
When the device is being switched off, an over-voltage spike is seen in the Vce
waveform before it settles down to the dc bus value. This over-voltage spike is due to fast change in
current and stray inductance in the power circuit.
Fig. 15(a) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (FUL) when Rg,off= 22. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: Vce [1000 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
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Fig. 15(b) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (FUL) when Rg,off= 22. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: voltage across shorting switch, SW [250 volts/div], horizontal axis:
500 ns/div)
Fig. 15(b) shows the measured Vge and the voltage across the shorting switch SW
(Vsw) during the short-circuit test with a gate resistance of 22. During the pre-fault condition, the
voltage across switch (SW) equals the dc bus voltage. The moment fault is created, V sw reduces
sharply to a low value as shown by the oscillogram. From this instant, it takes around 2s for Vge to
change it from +15 V to -15 V. This is much less than the IGBTs short-circuit current withstand
time of 10 s.
Fig. 16(a) presents the transients in Vge and Vce with a gate resistance of 47, and
the transients in Vsw and Vge are shown in Fig. 16(b). The magnitude of the over-voltage spike in
the Vce transient, before it settles down to the dc bus voltage, is less for higher value of gate turn-off
resistance as seen from Fig. 15(a) and Fig. 16(a). It is observed that, in case of 22 gate turn-off
resistance, the overshoot in Vce is around 400 volts, while it is around 250 volts for an R g,off of
resistance is 47.
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Fig. 16(a) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (FUL) when Rg,off= 47. (Channel-1:
Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: Vce [1000 volts/div], horizontal axis: 500ns/div)
Fig. 16(b) Turn-off waveform under short-circuit condition (FUL) when Rg,off= 47.
(Channel-1: Vge [10 volts/div], Channel -2: voltage across shorting switch, SW [500 volts/div],
horizontal axis: 1s/div)
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The total turn-off time increases with increase in gate turn-off resistance as seen
from Fig. 15(b) and Fig. 16(b). The total turn-off time for the latter case is approximately 3 s.
As in the case of HSF, there is a possibility of re-turning on of the device while
being switched off after detection of a fault under load (FUL) as well. This is seen from the
measured Vge presented in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16. Again, as with HSF, the possibility reduces with
increase in gate turn-off resistance as seen from experimental results in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16.
7. Conclusion:
An IGBT gate-drive circuit is designed, fabricated and tested. The drive circuit has
the capability to protect an IGBT from short-circuit condition and under-voltage (gate-emitter
voltage) condition. The drive circuit presented will be helpful to students and practicing engineers,
building a voltage source inverter or any other power converter using IGBTs. The circuit can also
serve as a reference design for development of drive circuits for IGBTs of different ratings.
The driver circuit is tested on a SEMIKRON SKM75GB123D half-bridge module,
operated in the chopper mode with a DC bus voltage of 600 V. Since there are practical difficulties
in sensing the device current, particularly due to the sandwich bus-bar structure of inverters, a test
procedure that does not require any sensing of current is presented. A reasonable measurement of
the various intervals in switching transition is possible, simply based on the measured gate-emitter
and collector-emitter voltages, and without the measured collector current. The test results under
normal condition and short-circuit condition are presented. The short-circuit test results clearly
demonstrate the capability of the drive circuit to protect the device against both hard switched fault
and fault under load. Further, the effect of gate resistances on switching transients during normal as
well as fault conditions is studied experimentally. The results of short-circuit test indicate that it is
better to use comparatively higher values of gate resistance to turn off a device under fault than the
gate resistance used under normal condition.
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References:
[1] G. Narayanan, S. R. Murulidhara, A. S. Anand and V. Ramanarayanan, Protection of insulated
gate bipolar transistors against short circuit, special Issue on Power Electronics at IISc-2, Vol.
80, no. 5, September- October 2000.
[2] Chokhawala. R, Catt J and Pelly. B., Gate drive consideration for IGBT modules, IEEE-IAS
92 conference Rec., 1992, Houston, Texas, pp. 1186-1195
[3] Chokhawala. R, Catt J and Kiraly. L., A discussion on IGBT short circuit behaviour and fault
protection schemes, IEEE-APEC93 conf. Rec., 1993, san Diego, California, USA, pp.393-401
[4] Vinod John, Bum-Seok Suh, and Thomas A. Lipo, Fast-Clamped Short-Circuit Protection of IGBTs,
IEEE Transaction on Industry Apllications, vol. 35, no. 2, March/April 1999
[5] P. K. Nandi, Study of short circuit performance of IGBT and development of base drives for
IGBT, ME thesis, Dept. of EE, IISc, January 1995.
[6] Datasheet: SKM75GB123D, Semikron International, URL: www. semikron.com
[7] Application manual: IGBT and MOSFET power modules, Semikron International
[8] Bjrn Backlund, Raffael Schnell, Ulrich Schlapbach, Roland Fischer and Evgeny Tsyplakov,
Application Note:Applying IGBTs,ABB Switzerland Ltd, April 2009
[9] Datasheet: HCPL-316J, Avago Technologies, URL: www. avagotech.com
[10] Ned Mohan, Underland, and Robbins, Power Electronics: Converters, Applications and
Design, 3rd
edition, John Wiley publications, pages 626-640
[11] Datasheet: HCPL-3101, Agilent (Hewlett Packard), URL: www.datasheetcatalog.com
/agilent(hewlett-packard)
[12] Datasheet: MIC4429/4420, Micrel, URL: www.micrel.com
[13] Datasheet: WIMA Capacitor, Wima, URL: www.wima.com
[14] Datasheet: LM339; National Semiconductor, URL: www.national.com
[15] K. S. Bhanuprasad, Drive and protection circuit for high current IGBT, ME thesis, Dept. of
EE, IISc, July 2006.
[16] Datasheet: IRFZ44, International Rectifier, URL: www.irf.com
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[17] Datasheet: TL494, Texas Instrument, URL: www.ti.com
[18] Datasheet: LM7815, Fairchild Semiconductor, URL: www.fairchildsemi.com
[19] Salvatore Musumeci, Angelo Raciti, Antonio Testa, Agostino Galluzzo, and Maurizio Melito,
Switching-Behavior Improvement of Insulated Gate-Controlled Devices,IEEE Transaction on Power
Electronics, vol 12, no. 4, July 1997