Driving circuits for high power IGBT applications

Two idea proposals of driving circuits for power IGBT devices have been considered in this paper. The drivers have been tested on a measuring circuit with a 400 A IGBT. The laboratory test circuit permits testing of two types of short-circuit processes in the IGBT load. The transistor may be switched on for a short-circuited load and short-circuit stress may appear while the IGBT is conducting its rated current. Comparison measurements of the proposed circuits have been also carried out during research work concerning a 100 kW inverter-fed AC motor drive system. The results, in the form of transient waveforms of the controlled IGBT, including the short-circuit behaviour of the power transistor, are also presented. Particularly, the turn-off behaviour of the IGBT is illustrated with help of several oscillograms obtained during research experiments. The drivers´ parameters have also been compared with the parameters of the Mitsubishi M57962L hybrid gate driver