Electro-thermal instability in multi-cellular Trench-IGBTs in avalanche condition: Experiments and simulations

Author

Riccio, M. ; Irace, A. ; Breglio, G. ; Spirito, P. ; Napoli, E. ; Mizuno, Y.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Biomed., Electron. & Telecommun. Eng., Univ. of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

fYear

2011

Firstpage

124

Lastpage

127

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a study on electro-thermal instability induced in multi-cellular Trench-IGBTs in avalanche condition. Experimental measurements, made on T-IGBTs, show possible inhomogeneous current distribution under Unclamped Inductive Switching (UIS) confirmed by transient infrared thermography measurements. Together with this, an analytical modeling of avalanche behavior has been included in a compact electro-thermal simulator to study the interaction between a large numbers of elementary cells of T-IGBTs forced in avalanche condition. Electro-thermal simulations qualitatively replicate the possible inhomogeneous operation observed experimentally. Finally a possible theoretical interpretation of the instability in avalanche condition for T-IGBT is given.

Keywords

infrared imaging; insulated gate bipolar transistors; avalanche condition; electro-thermal instability; elementary cells; inhomogeneous current distribution; multicellular trench-IGBT; transient infrared thermography measurements; undamped inductive switching; Analytical models; Current density; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Nonhomogeneous media; Resistance; Solid modeling; Transient analysis;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs (ISPSD), 2011 IEEE 23rd International Symposium on

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

ISSN

1943-653X

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-8425-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISPSD.2011.5890806

Filename

5890806