Analysis of dependence of dVCE/dt on turn-off characteristics with a 1200 V double-gate insulated gate bipolar transistor

The double-gate drive is a remarkable gate control technique for dramatically reducing turn-off loss in Si-insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) by increasing dVCE/dt. However, no detailed analysis of the difference of turn-off mechanism according to the difference in dVCE/dt between double-gate drive and conventional gate drive has been reported. The double-gate (DG) drive allows the dVCE/dt of IGBTs to increase beyond the maximum dVCE/dt of 7000 V s−1 in conventional gate drives. Furthermore, the influence of relations between gate-drive timings and dVCE/dt on turn-off operations were confirmed in the case of three different DG IGBT structures.