A critical analysis of IGBT geometries, with the intention of mitigating undesirable destruction by fault scenarios of an adverse nature

Megawatt class insulated gate bipolar transistors [IGBTs] find many uses in industrial applications such as traction drives, induction heating and power factor correction. At present, these devices are not optimized for higher speed pulsed-power applications, such as kicker magnets or klystron modulators. This paper identifies fundamental issues that limit the dI/dt performance of standard commercial packages, and investigates several IGBT design optimizations that significantly improve high-speed performance at high peak power levels. The paper presents design concepts, results of electromagnetic simulations, and performance data of actual prototypes under high dI/dt conditions.