RB-IGBT gate drive circuit and its application in two-stage matrix converter

Compared with conventional direct matrix converter, two-stage matrix converter has similar input/output characteristic. Furthermore, two-stage matrix converter can be implemented and controlled much easier since it has a practical dc-link. RB-IGBT is employed to construct bi-directional switches in two-stage matrix converter, which reduces on-state voltage drop and power loss of the converter. In this paper, a gate drive circuit for RB-IGBT with short-circuit protection based on integrated chip EXB841 is proposed. Experimental results validate the good performance of the proposed circuit in terms of switching test, fault under load test and hard switching fault test. The proposed gate drive circuit has been applied to drive the RB-IGBT bi-directional switches in the rectifier stage of two-stage matrix converter. The implementation of 10kW two-stage matrix converter prototype using RB-IGBT is presented, and the experimental results on the rectifier stage of two-stage matrix converter using RB-IGBT is shown to test the proposed gate drive circuit.