Turn-on mechanism of 2500 V MOS assisted gate triggered thyristor (MAGT)

2500-V MOS assisted gate triggered thyristors (MAGTs) have been proposed as promising devices for future pulsed power applications. It was successfully demonstrated that the device is able to form an extremely large current pulse of 110 kA/ mu s/cm/sup 2/ di/dt and 100 ns pulse width. Numerical simulations were carried out to investigate the switching-on mechanisms as well as the maximum switching speed. It would found that three operation modes are distinguishable in the turn-on transients and that the whole device area goes into thyristor action only 45 ns after MOS gate triggering. This is attributed to the fine-patterned small unit cell size and uniform MOS gate triggering. MAGTs also have a large current handling capability, exceeding 10 kA/cm/sup 2/, and thus have great potential as a direct replacement for conventional thyratrons.<>