Self-Feeder Driver for Voltage Balance in Series-Connected IGBT Associations

The emergence of high voltage conversion applications has resulted in a trend of using semiconductor device series associations. Series associations allow for operation at blocking voltages, which are higher than the nominal voltage for each of the semiconductor devices. The main challenge with these topologies is finding a way to guarantee the voltage balance between devices in both blocking and switching transients. Most of the methods that have been proposed to mitigate static and dynamic voltage unbalances result in increased losses within the device. This paper introduces a new series stack topology, where the voltage unbalances are reduced. This in turn, mitigates the switching losses. The proposed topology consists of a circuit that ensures the soft switching of each device, and one auxiliary circuit that allows for switching energy recovery. The principle for the topology operation is presented and experimental tests are performed for two modules. The topology performs excellently for switching transients on each of the devices. The voltage static unbalances were limited to 10%, while the activation/deactivation delay introduced by the lower module IGBT driver takes place in the dynamic unbalances. Thus, the switching losses are reduced by 40%, when compared to hard switching configurations.

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Cite this article

[IEEE Style]

A. F. Guerrero-Guerrero, A. J. Ustariz-Farfan, H. E. Tacca, E. A. Cano-Plata, "Self-Feeder Driver for Voltage Balance in Series-Connected IGBT Associations," Journal of Power Electronics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 68-78, 2019. DOI: 10.6113/JPE.2019.19.1.68.

[ACM Style]

A. F. Guerrero-Guerrero, A. J. Ustariz-Farfan, H. E. Tacca, and E. A. Cano-Plata. 2019. Self-Feeder Driver for Voltage Balance in Series-Connected IGBT Associations. Journal of Power Electronics, 19, 1, (2019), 68-78. DOI: 10.6113/JPE.2019.19.1.68.