DEPARTMENT OF MECHATRONIC ENGINEERING

EMT 2406: POWER ELECTRONICS

TITLE:

POWER SEMICONDUCTORS DEVICES

WRITTEN BY:

REGISTRATION NO:

DATE DUE:

LECTURER:

POWER DIODE

In its basic form a semiconductor diode is formed from a piece of silicon by making one end P type and the other end N type. This means that both ends have different characteristics. One end has an excess of electrons whilst the other has an excess of holes. Where the two areas meet the electrons fill the holes and there are no free holes or electrons. This means that there are no available charge carries in this region. In view of the fact that this area is depleted of charge carriers it is known as the depletion region.

The semiconductor diode PN junction with no bias applied Even though the depletion region is very thin, often only few thousandths of a millimetre, current cannot flow in the normal way. Different effects are noticed dependent upon the way in which the voltage is applied to the junction. If the voltage is applied such that the P type area becomes positive and the N type becomes negative, holes are attracted towards the negative voltage and are assisted to jump across the depletion layer. Similarly electrons move towards the positive voltage and jump the depletion layer. Even though the holes and electrons are moving in opposite directions, they carry opposite charges and as a result they represent a current flow in the same direction.

The semiconductor diode PN junction with forward bias If the voltage is applied to the semiconductor diode in the opposite sense no current flows. The reason for this is that the holes are attracted towards the negative potential that is applied to the P type region. Similarly the electrons are attracted towards the positive potential which is applied to the N type region. In other words the holes and electrons are attracted away from the junction itself and the depletion region increases in width. Accordingly no current flows.

The semiconductor diode PN junction with reverse bias

PN junction characteristics
The PN junction is not an ideal rectifier diode having infinite resistance in the reverse direction and no resistance in the forward direction.

The characteristic of a diode PN junction In the forward direction (forward biased) it can be seen that very little current flows until a certain voltage has been reached. This represents the work that is required to enable the charge carriers to cross the depletion layer. This voltage varies from one type of semiconductor to another. For germanium it is around 0.2 or 0.3 volts and for silicon it is about 0.6 volts. In fact it is possible to measure a voltage of about 0.6 volts across most small current diodes when they are forward biased. Power rectifier diodes normally have a larger voltage across them but this is partly due to the fact that there is some resistance in the silicon, and partly due to the fact that higher currents are flowing and they are operating further up the curve.

From the diagram it can be seen that a small amount of current flows in the reverse direction (reverse biased). It has been exaggerated to show it on the diagram, and in normal circumstances it is very much smaller than the forward current. Typically it may be a pico amps or microamps at the most. However it is worse at higher temperatures and it is also found that germanium is not as good as silicon. This reverse current results from what are called minority carriers. These are a very small number of electrons found in a P type region or holes in an N type region. Early semiconductors has relatively high levels of minority carriers, but now that the manufacture of semiconductor materials is very much better the number of minority carriers is much reduced as are the levels of reverse currents.

POWER TRANSISTER
Basic transistor structure
The transistor is a three terminal device and consists of three distinct layers. Two of them are doped to give one type of semiconductor and the there is the opposite type, i.e. two may be n-type and one p-type, or two may be ptype and one may be n-type.. They are arranged so that the two similar layers of the transistor sandwich the layer of the opposite type. As a result transistor are designated either P-N-P (PNP) types of N-P-N (NPN) types according to the way they are made up.

The centre region is called the base and gains its name from the fact that in the very earliest transistors it formed the "base" for the whole structure. The other two connections are called the emitter and collector. These names result from the way in which they either emit or collect the charge carriers. It is also essential that the base region is very thin if the device is to be able to operate. In today's transistors the base may typically be only about 1 mm [micrometre] across. It is the fact that the base region of the transistor is thin that is the key to the operation of the device

Transistor operation
A transistor can be considered as two P-N junctions placed back to back. One of these, namely the base emitter junction is forward biased, whilst the other, the base collector junction is reverse biased. It is found that when a current is made to flow in the base emitter junction a larger current flows in the collector circuit even though the base collector junction is reverse biased. For clarity the example of an NPN transistor is taken. The same reasoning can be used for a PNP device, except that holes are the majority carriers instead of electrons. When current flows through the base emitter junction, electrons leave the emitter and flow into the base. However the doping in this region is kept low and there are comparatively few holes available for recombination. As a result most of the electrons are able to flow right through the base region and on into the collector region, attracted by the positive potential.

Only a small proportion of the electrons from the emitter combine with holes in the base region giving rise to a current in the base-emitter circuit. This means that the collector current is much higher. The ratio between the collector current and the base current is given the Greek symbol b. For most small signal transistors this may be in the region 50 to 500. In some cases it can be even higher. This means that the collector current is typically between 50 and 500 times that flowing in the base. For a high power transistor the value of b is somewhat less: 20 is a fairly typical value.

Switching characteristics of a Power Transistor

In a power electronic circuit the power transistor is usually employed as a switch i.e. it operates in either cut off (switch OFF) or saturation (switch

ON) regions. However, the operating characteristics of a power transistor differs significantly from an ideal controlled switch in the following respects. It can conduct only finite amount of current in one direction when ON It can block only a finite voltage in one direction. It has a voltage drop during ON condition It carries a small leakage current during OFF condition Switching operation is not instantaneous It requires non zero control power for switching

POWER MOSFET

With no electrical bias applied to the gate G, no current can flow in either direction underneath the gate because there will always be a blocking PN

junction. When the gate is forward biased with respect to the source S together with an applied drain-source voltage, as shown in Figure 2, the free hole carriers in the p-epitaxial layer are repelled away from the gate area creating a channel, which allows electrons to flow from the source to the drain. Note that since the holes have been repelled from the gate channel, the electrons are the majority carriers by default. This mode of operation is called enhancement but is easier to think of enhancement mode of operation as the device being normally off, i.e., the switch blocks the current until it receives a signal to turn on. The opposite is depletion mode, which is normally on device.

Power MOSFETs are majority carrier devices, and there is no minority carrier storage time. Hence, they have exceptionally fast rise and fall times. They are essentially resistive devices when turned on, while bipolar transistors present a more or less constant VCE(sat) over the normal operating range. Power dissipation in MOSFETs is Id 2 RDS(on) , and in bipolars it is IC VCE(sat). At low currents, therefore, a power MOSFET may have a lower conduction loss than a comparable bipolar device, but at higher currents, the conduction loss will exceed that of bipolars. Also, the RDS(on) increases with temperature. An important feature of a power MOSFET is the absence of a secondary breakdown effect, which is present in a bipolar transistor, and as a result, it has an extremely rugged switching performance. In MOSFETs, RDS (on) increases with temperature, and thus the current is automatically diverted away from the hot spot. The drain body junction appears as an antiparallel diode between source and drain. Thus, power MOSFETs will not support voltage in the reverse direction. Although this inverse diode is relatively fast, it is slow by comparison with the MOSFET. Recent devices have the diode recovery time as low as 100 ns. Since MOSFETs cannot be protected by fuses, an electronic protection technique has to be used. With the advancement in MOS technology, ruggedized MOSFETs are replacing the conventional MOSFETs. The need to ruggedize power MOSFETs is related to device reliability. If a MOSFET is operating within its specification range at all times, its chances for failing catastrophically are minimal. However, if its absolute maximum rating is exceeded, failure probability increases dramatically. Under actual operating conditions, a MOSFET may be subjected to transientseither externally from the power bus supplying the circuit or from the circuit itself due, for example, to inductive kicks going beyond the absolute maximum ratings. Such conditions are likely in almost every application, and in most cases are beyond a designers control. Rugged devices are made to be more tolerant for overvoltage transients. Ruggedness is the ability of a MOSFET to operate in an environment of dynamic electrical stresses, without activating any of the parasitic bipolar junction transistors. The rugged device can withstand higher levels of diode recovery dv/dt and static dv/dt.

The advantages of the lateral MOSFET are: 1. Low gate signal power requirement. No gate current can flow into the gate after the small gate oxide capacitance has been charged. 2. Fast switching speeds because electrons can start to flow from drain to source as soon as the channel opens. The channel depth is proportional to the gate voltage and pinches closed as soon as the gate voltage is removed, so there is no storage time effect as occurs in transis tors.

Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT)

The Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor or IGBT for short combines the high dc current gain of a MOSFET with the high current handling capability and high blocking voltage of a BJT in a surprisingly simple structure such as the one shown in Figure 7.8.3. At first glance, the vertical structure looks like that of a regular bipolar transistor structure. However a closer look reveals a p+ substrate rather than an n+ substrate. To further analyze this structure we use the equivalent circuit, which contains the pnp BJT as formed by the bottom three layers as well as the nMOSFET underneath the gate electrode. One should note that the p-type collector of the pnp BJT and the ntype source of the nMOSFET share the same metal contact. Also, that the drain region of the nMOSFET is the buried n-type layer, which is the n-type base of the pnp BJT. The electrons originating from the n+ source flow laterally underneath the gate and then flow down in the buried n-type region, thereby supplying the gate current of the pnp BJT. Since the gate current is provided locally, the emitter current will be concentrated around the same area. Note that under typical operation the collector would be grounded while the positive voltage is applied to the emitter. Therefore this device can be connected in a switching circuit just like an npn BJT with the important distinction that no gate current is required to maintain the on-state current.

THYRISTER

Structure of a thyristor The thyristor consists of a four layer p-n-p-n structure with the outer layers are referred to as the anode (n-type) and cathode (n-type). The control terminal of the SCR is named the gate and it is connected to the p-type layer located next to the cathode.

The level of doping varies between the different layers of the thyristor. The cathode is the most heavily doped. The gate and anode are the next heavily doped. The lowest doping level is within the central n type layer. This is also thicker than the other layers and these two factors enable a large blocking voltage to be supported. Thinner layers would mean that the device would break down at lower voltages. In view of the very high currents and power levels that some thyristors are used to switch, thermal considerations are of paramount importance. The anode of the SCR or silicon controlled rectifier is usually bonded to the package since the gate terminal is near the cathode and needs to be connected separately. This is accomplished in such a way that heat is removed from the silicon to the package. Apart from the internal considerations, the external heat-sinking considerations for the thyristor must be carefully implemented otherwise the device may overheat and fail. Thyristors are usually manufactured from silicon. There are two main reasons for this. One is the voltage, current and thermal handling properties of silicon enable it to meet the requirements of the power industry, and secondly silicon technology is well developed and very cheap to use.

Thyristor operation

In operation the SCR may be considered as two back to back transistors. The transistor with its emitter connected to the cathode of the thyristor is a n-p-n device whereas the transistor with its emitter connected to the anode of the SCR is a p-n-p variety. The gate is connected to the base of the n-p-n transistor.

This arrangement forms a positive feedback loop within the thyristor. The output of one transistor fed to the input of the second. In turn the output of the second transistor is fed back to the input of the first. As a result it can be seen that the total current gain of the device exceeds one. This means that when a current starts to flow, it quickly builds up until both transistors are fully turned on or saturated. When a voltage is applied across a thyristor no current flows because neither transistor is conducting. As a result there is no complete path across the device. If a small current is passed through the gate electrode, this will turn "on" the transistor TR2. When this occurs it will cause the collector of TR2 to fall towards the voltage on the emitter, i.e. the cathode of the whole device. When this occurs it will cause current to flow through the base of TR1 and turn this transistor "on". Again this will now try to pull the voltage on the collector of TR1 towards its emitter voltage. This will cause current to flow in the emitter of TR2, causing its "on" state to be maintained. In this way it only requires a small trigger pulse on the gate to turn the thyristor on. Once switched on, the thyristor can only be turned off by removing the supply voltage.