Development and Experimental Demonstration of a Self-Powered ETO (SPETO)

This paper presents the design and experimental demonstration of a superior high-power-device self-powered emitter turn-off thyristor (SPETO). Different from conventional high-power devices which require external power input for their gate drivers, the SPETO achieves optically controlled turn on and turn off, and all of the internal power required is self-obtained. A low-loss gate-drive circuit is implemented which allows the simple power-up operation. During a normal switching operation, the SPETO obtains a power for the gate drive during its turn-on operation. A novel switching strategy is also introduced to minimize the gate-drive power requirement. The SPETO greatly reduces costs and increases the reliability of power converters since no external power supply for device gate drive is required. Therefore, the SPETO is suitable for high-power high-frequency voltage-source-converter applications