Design of an advanced modular automated evaluation system for experimental high power SGTOs

An advanced evaluation system for experimental high power Super Gate Turn Off Thyristors (SGTOs) with built - in custom data acquisition and characterization electronics was designed and built in a cooperative agreement between engineers at Texas Tech University´s Center for Pulsed Power and Power electronics (P³ E) laboratory and research scientists at Army Research Lab (ARL). The system consist of a Pulse Forming Network (PFN) energized by a rapid capacitor charger, a data acquisition system which records chosen waveforms for each test cycle and a curve tracing module which the test devices are mechanically switched into to record current and voltage characteristics at arbitrary intervals between high power cycles. Testing is completely automated, with all test parameters including charge level, repetition rate, volume, etc. set within a windows based GUI. The evaluation system has successfully recorded changing I - V characteristics before actual physical failure in several devices. Extremely high volume testing has also been carried out with one device having been cycled over 42,000 times at moderate (2.5 kA) conduction levels.