IGBT half-bridge shoot-through characterization for model validation

A circuit is described for making a variety of measurements on half-bridge insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) pairs for validating IGBT models. The circuit incorporates two robust isolated gate drives for the IGBTs. Each IGBT is driven with an eight-cycle square-wave burst with a long dead-time between bursts so that heat-sinking requirements are greatly reduced. The circuit incorporates a delay for one of the gate drives so that a variable amount of gate overlap or dead-time can be obtained. Switching events are studied that contain intervals where one IGBT is turned on before the other is turned off, as well as intervals where one is turned off before the other is turned on. The former situation applies to shoot-through faults and also emulates IGBT turn-on with diode recovery, while the latter situation represents desirable transition of current between devices. Results are related to suggested model validation procedures.