Fault Detection for IGBT Using Adaptive Thresholds During the Turn-on Transient

This paper presents the analysis and design of an electronic failure detection system applied to the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), this proposal is based on the direct measurement of behavior of the gate signal during the turn-on transient. The failures by short-circuit and open-circuit devices only are considered in this paper. To achieve early detection, the IGBT gate signal behavior during turn-on transient is used and to increase the effectiveness of the detection and to tolerate the variations of input to system, adaptable thresholds have been added to the analog electronics circuit implemented. The experimental tests are presented in order to validate the proposed fault-detection technique.