EEE aw. 2.4) Powen Eu It is seen from Eqs. (2.4) and (2.5) that reverse recovery ne f,, and peak inverse current I,,, are dependent on storage ch nge of current © storage charge and rate of chi f ‘The storay dt = charge“depends upon the forward diode current Ip. This shows that reverse recov and peak inverse current depend on forward fieldor diode, currant. creed power-electronies engineer must know peak reverse current Jy, stored char S-factor, PIV etc. in order to be able to design the circuitry employing power diode: ee parameters are usually specified in the catalogue supplied by the diode manufacturers, Apso mea dey Dee classified according to their reverse recovery characteristics. The three types of (2) General purpose diodes Gi) Fast recovery diodes (iii) Schottky diodes. These are now described briefly. 2.4.1 General-purpose Diodes These diodes hav i i rse recovery time, of the order of about 25 us. Their current ratings vary from 1 A to several thousand amperes and fhe range of voltage rating is from 50 V to about 5 kV. Applications of power diodes of this type include battery charging, electric traction, electroplating; ind uninterruptible power supplies ( 7. 2.4.2 Fast-recovery Diodes ‘The diodes with low reverse recovery time, of about 5 us or less, are classified as fast: recovery diodes. These_are ‘used in choppers, Commutation circuits,switched mode power Sapplics, induction heating ete. Their current ratings vary from about 1 A t0 several thousand amperes and voltage ratings from 50 V to about 3 kV. For voltage ratings below about 400 V, the epitaxial_process fabrication. These diodes have fast re as Tow as 50 ns. atings above 400 V, diffusion technique is used for the fabrication of Fr oe Ne tne reverse-recovery OMG, platinum or gold opine i 5 diodes. In order to shorten Srocovery UME, platinum or gold doping is carried out. But this doping may increase the forward voltage drop in a diode. for diode 2.4.3 Schottky Diodes ‘This class of diodes use metal-to-semiconduet urposes instead of “d semiconductor is silicon. Therefore, a pce tunetion, The metal is usually aluminium and_semicor Shottky diode hag aluminium-silicon junetion. ‘The silicon 's w-byPe- heen When Schottky diode is forward biased, free electrons in mate ial move towards the tf a) to constitute tie How of ‘Ale jusietion and thon travel through the metal ‘alunite i fo ‘ent. Since metal does not have oles, this forward current is due to the -——7— 3 storage ge. 1 no movement of lero Fe fal has no holes, there is-no.storage charge and né Feverse recovery time. Tt ¢ can, therefore, be said that reClified current, flow in a Se jottky s. the movement of Majority carriers (electrons: gad the turn-off delay used diodes hy the movemen| Es es by recombiuation is avoided. Ax such, Schottky “jiode can switch off much faster than p-n junction diode. Scanned with CamScannerPower Semiconouctor Dioves ano TRANSISTORS (Arr. 2.5) As compared to p-n junction diode, a Schottky diode has (i) lower cut-in voltage, (ii) higher reverse Teakage current and iiyiigher operating juericy. Their reverse voltage ratings are limited to about 100 V and forward current ratings vary fron? 1 A to 300 A. Applications of Schottky diode include high-frequency instrumentation and switching power supplies, 2 The electrical and thermal characteristics of power diodes are similar to those of thyristors which are described in Chapter 4. Ss ae Power diodes are uncontrolled devices. In other words, their_turn-on_and_turn-off clfaracteristies are not_under control. Power transistors, however, possess controlled chafacteristics, These are turned on when a current signal is given to base, or control, terminal. The transistor remains in the on-state so long as control signal is present. When this control signal is removed, a power transistor is turned off. Power transistors are of four types as under : @ Bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) (Mal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) (dij) Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and (iv) Static induction transistors (SITs). These four types are now described one after the other. 2.5.1 Bipolar Junction Transistors A bipolar transistaris.a three-layer, twa junction npn or pnp semiconductor ¢ pregions sandwiching one n-region, Fig. 2.5 (b), pnp transistor is_ : ‘bipolar’ denotes that the current flow in the device is dueto the movement of both holes and electrons. A BJT has three terminals named collector (C), emitter (E) and base (B)—An jidicated by an arrowhead indicating the direction of emiftercurrent” Noarrow is aSsociated with base or collector. Power transistors of npn type are easy to manufacture and are cheaper also. Therefore, use of power npn transistors is very wide in high-voltage and high-current applications. Hereafter, npn transistors would only be considered. Collector Base Emitter i.e Emitter (a). (by Fig. 2.5. Bipolar junction transistors (0) npn type and (b) pnp type. Scanned with CamScanner25) . Fy HEB pw 28 «out ofthe Gh poll eral age ‘angement is, more _commén_in_switgyie 7 a awitet {for obtaining ils eharacteristics is consider tions for applic: as she nin Fig. 20 a). t characteristics. 4 graph belween bise curront fy.andt base-emitter vlog Input charac! ies. A ea As the base-emitter june ion of'a transistor is like a diode, San cne pve, When cuilector-emitter vollaige Veg, is more thay es use as shown in Pig 2.6 (b). me Vg Tos Tag" Tox satu- ration region Leakage current Cutoff region (a) ) © jes and (c) output characteristics. Fig*2.6. (2) npn transistor cirebit characteristics, (b) input characteris Output characteristies. A graph between collector current J, collector-emitter For zero base current, ie. for Ty sed, a small leakage (collector) current exists as shown in Fig. 2.6 (c). As the .s as shown in a Vc base current is increased from I, = 0 toIy,, Ip. ete., collector current also rise Fig. 2.6 (c). Fig. 2.7 (a) shows two of the output characteristic curves, 1 for I, = 0 and 2 for I, * The initial part of curve 2, characterised by low Vag, is called the saturation region. In th region, the transistor acts like a switch, The flat part of curve 2, indicated by increasing Vos and almost constant [,, is the active region. In this region, transistor acts like an amplifier. Almost vertically rising curve is the breakdown region which must be avoided at all costs For load resfstor R,, Fig. 2.6 (a), the collector current I, is given by Ke ‘This isthe equation of load line. ILis shown as line AB in Fig, 2.7 a). A toad line he Jocus of all possible operating points. Ideally, when transistor is on, Veg is zero and le = “ce Fic, This collector eurrent is shown by point A on the vertieal axis. When the transis", ere or in the cut-off region, Vic, appears across collector current. This value is indicated by point B on the horizontal axi load, the line joining points A and B is the load line, collector-emil inals and there is 0° emitter terminals and Te istive — Scanned with CamScannerPower Sewiconouctor Diobes AND TRANSISTORS taer. 2.5) AE Breakdown Collector Saturation point Tyo Te\] ft Active \ \ ty ah” 5 Emitter (a) (b) Breakover voltage Load line Soturation J Fegion Fig. 2.7. (a) Output characteristics and load line for npn transistor and (b) electron flow in an npn transistor. Relation between a and 8. Most of the electrons, proportional to I,, given out by emitter, reach the collector as shown in Fig. 2.7 (6). In other words, collector current Ig, though less than emitter current ,, is almost equal to ,. A symbol a. is used to indicate how close in value these two currents are. Here a, called forward current gain, is defined as --(2.6) As I, large base current will cause the transistor to work in the saturation region at point A’ with small . Here subscript S$ is used to denote saturated Value. Voltage Voss represents on-state voltage drop of the transistor which is of the order of about 1 V. When the control, or base, signal is reduced to zero, the transistor is turned off, and its operation shifts to B’ in the cut-off region, Fig. 2.7 (a). A smnall leakage current Igo flows in the collector circuit when the transistor is off. For Fig. 2.6 (a), KVI for the circuit consisting of V», Ry and emitter gives V5 —Rgly— Vg =0 itch means that transistor operates Vp - Vag or t= OS (2.11) Also, from Fig. 2.6 (a), Veg = Vog + IgRg or Vor = Vee~TeRe = Veo - Blake = Veo - BRe w, Vag) -(2.12) B Also Vor = Von + Vag 7 Vee = Vor - Vie (2.18) fVop. s is the collector-emitter saturation voltage, then collector current Igg is given by (2.14) 6. (2.15) B If base current is less than Ing, the transistor operates in the active region, i.e. somewhere between the saturation and cut-off points, If base current is more than. Tass Vezs is almost zero and collector current from Eq, (2.14) is given by Ios = Veo/Re. This shows that collector current at saturation remains substantially constaat eve. if base current is increased. With base current more than Iy., hard drive of transistor is obtained. With hard saturation, on-state losses of transistor increase, Normally, the practical circuit is designed for hard-drive of transistor and therefore, base current Jy is greater than Ip, given by Eq. (2.15). The ratio of I and Iys is defined as the overdrive factor (ODF), " ODF (2.16) “ Scanned with CamScannerPower Semiconoucror Dioots AND Transistors [Arr. 2.5] Ea ODF may be as high as 4 or 5, ‘The ratio of Log to Ty is called foreed current gain fly where Te Bye= C8 < natural ei = ont gain fb or hy, (2.17) d Ty ‘The total power loss in the two junctions of a transistor is Py= Vag la + Von (2.18) Under saturated state, Vij; is greater than Vi z¢, this means BEJ is forward biased. Farther Eq. hows that Vj is negative under saturated conditions, therefore, CB is also forward biased. In other words, under saturated conditions, both junctions in a power transistor are forward biased, Example 2.1. A bipolar transistor shown in Fig. 2.6 (a) has current gain fp = 40. The load resistance R= 10 Q, de supply voltage Vex, = 130 V and input voltage to base circuit, Vg = 10 V. For Vogg = 1.0 Vand Vays = 1.5 V, calculate : (a) the value of Ry for operation in the saturated state, () the value of Ry for an overdrive factor 5, (©) foreed-current gain and (d) power loss in the transistor for both parts (a) and (b). Solution. Here, = 40, Re = 10.2, Veg = 130 V, Vg = 10 V, Vogs = 1.0V and Vagg=1.5V (a) From Eq. (2.14), for operation in the saturated state, — Yoo Vers _130-1.0 _ Tog = “00 TES = ST = 12.90 A From Eq. (2.15), base current that produces saturation, 12.90 _ Tyg = 28. = 0.3225 A BSB 40 Value of Ry for Ing = 0.3225 A is given by Eq. (2.11) as, Vp - Vai Tog 0.3225 (b) Base current with overdrive, from Eq. (2.16), is I= ODF x Ing = 5 x 0.8225 = 1.6125 A eas gota 1.6125 (c) Forced current gain, from Eq. (2.17), is, 10-15 Ry= = 26.357 2 Tes _ 12.90 _ % Ty, 1.6125 =8, which is less than the natural current gain {5 = 40. (d) Power loss in transistor, from Eq. (2.18), is Pr= Vues tne + Vous tos For normal base drive, P,= 1.5 x 0.3225 + 1.0 x 12,9 = 13.384 W Scanned with CamScanneryo ve, Pp = 15 with overdrive 7 at power loss WH Mecence of inter various switching ith resistive input voltage Ug , When trjon EB or EBJ is reverse biased, Up, istor is off, ig = 4c = 0 : input voltage Up is made + V, and Artime fy: yr in Fig. 2.9. After t, base- begins to rise gradually from —~ V, begins to rise from zero ; 8 ieetehall leakage current Iogo exists as shown in Fig. 2.7 (a)) and collector-emitter (SRS gy starts falling from its initial value Veg. After some time delay tp called delay eee Entcctor current rises 0 0.1 Ics, Uce falls from Voc to 0.9 Vog and Ugg reaches Vags ae this delay time is required to charge the base-emitter capacitance to Vpgs = 0.7 V. Thus, delay time t, is defined as the time during which the collector current rises from zero to 0.4 [z- and collector-emitter voltage falls from Vc to 0.9 Voc- “After delay time ¢,, collector current rises from 0.1 Ig to 0.9 Igg and Ugg falls from 0.9 V-p-t00.1 Vee in time, This time f, is known as rise time which depends upon transistor junction capacitances. Rist time t, is defined as the time during which collector current rises From 0.1 Ips to 0.9 ipg4nd collector-emitter voltage falls from 0.9 Voc to 0.1 Vgg. This shows that total turn-on time t,, = t, +t,. Value off,,, is of the order of 30 to 300 nano seconds. The transistor remains in the on, or saturated, state so long as input voltage stays at V,, Fig. 2.9 (a). In case transistor is to be turned off, then input voltage v, and input base current i, are reversed. At time ¢,, input voltage vy to base circuit is reversed from V, to — V,. At the same time, base current changes from /, to — Ip, as shown in Fig. 2.9 (b). Negative base current I,, removes excess carriers from the base. The time ¢, required to remove these excess carriers is called storage time and only after ¢,, base current J,, begins to decrease towards zero. Transistor comes out of saturation only after ty Storage time t, is usually defined as the time during which collector current falls from Igg to 0.9 Ig and collector- miter vl rises from Vogs t0O-1 Veo, Fig, 2.9 (d) and (@). Negative input voltage es the process of removal of exces time and therefore, the turneoffimes PARE cence Feduces the storage

device is in the off- Voor is of the order of 2 to 3 V. () Output characteristics. PMOSFET output characteristics, shown in Fig. 2.18 (c), indicate the variation of drain current Ip as a function of drain-source voltage Vps+ with gete-source voltage Vag as a parameter. For low values of Vps, the graph between Ip ~ Vps is e mmost linear; this indicates a constant value of on-resistance Rps = Vpgllp: For given Vig, if Vpg is increased, output characteristic is relatively flat, indicating that drain current is tt A and B. Here A needy constant. A load line intersects the output characteristics 2 jndicates fully-on condition and B fully-off state. PMOSFET operates as 2 switch either at A or at B just like a BJT. When power MOSFET is driven with large gate-source voltage, MOSFET is turned on, Vig-ox is small. Here, the MOSFET acting as a closed switch, is said to be driven into Chimie Gaon (called saturation region in BJT). When device turns on, PMOSFET traverses i, ~ Vg characteristics from cut-off, to active region and then to the ohmic region, Fig. 2.18 (a). When PMOSFET turns off, it takes backward journey from ohmic region to cut off state. (c) Switching characteristics. The switching characteristics of | a power MOSFET are influenced to a large extent by the internal capacitance of the device and the eel impedance of the gate drive circuit. At turn-on, there is an initial delay ¢,,, during which 5 delay tay Vasr Here t,, is called turn-on delay input capacitance charges to gate threshold voltage time. — Scanned with CamScanner[Anr. 2.6] twnen Veg < Yost Fig. 2.18. (a) Output characteristics of PMOSFET. ‘There is further delay f,, called rise time, during which gate voltage rises to Vj, voltage Sufficient to drive the MOSFET into on state. During ¢,, drain current rises from zero to full-on current I>. Thus, the total turn-on-time is t,, = tj, + f,- The turn-ca time can be reduced by using low-impedance gate-drive source. As MOSFET is a majority carrier device, turn-off process is initiated soon after removal of gate voltage at time ¢,. The turn-off delay time, t,,, is the time during which input capacitance discharges from overdrive gate voltage V, to Vesp. ‘The fall time, ¢,, is the time during which input capacitance discharges from V,,., to threshold voltage. During ¢,, drain current falls frem I, to zero. So when Vig < Ves, PMOSFET turn-off is complete. Switching waveforms for a power MOSFET are shown in Fig. 2.18 (b). 2.€.2 PMOSFET Applications The on-resistance of MOSFET increases with voltage rating ; this makes the device very lossy at high-current applications. Since the on-resistance has positive temperature coefficient, parallel operation of PMOSFETs is relatively easy. ‘The positive temperature coefficient also reduces the second breakdown effect in PMOSFETS. PMOSFETs find applications in high-frequency switching applicatio a few watts to few kWs. The device is very popular in switched-mode powe inverters. These are, at present available with 500 V, 140 A ratings. 2.6.3 Comparison of PMOSFET with BJT ‘The three terminals in a PMOSFET are designated as gato, source and drain, In a Bd'T, the corresponding three terminals are base, emitter and collector, A PMOSFET has sever al features different from those of Bu. These are outlined below : (@ BUT is a bipolar device whereas PMOSFE is a unipolar device. (ii) A PMOSFET has high input impedance (mega om) whereasanput impedance of BJT is low (a few kilo-ohm), varying from supplies and Scanned with CamScannerPower Etectrowes ing losses but its on-resistance and conduction losses erie he ene \ceeca but lower conduction lone So, at high frequency applications, PMOSEET is the obvious choice. But at lower operating frequencice les than about 10 to 20 kHz) BIT is superior. ve) PMOSFET is voltage controled device whereas BIT is eurrent controlled device, (©) PMOSFET has positive temperature coefficient for resistance. This makes parallel operation of PMOSFETs easy. I'a PMOSFET shares increased current initially, heats up faster, it resistance rises and this inereased resistance causes this current to shift to other devices in parallel. A BJT has negative temperature coefficient, 29 current sharing resistors are necessary during parallel operation of BJTs, \e) In PMOSFETs, secondary breakdown does not occur, because it has Positive femperature coefficient. As BJT has negative temperature coefficient, secondary breakdown does occur. In BJT, with decrease in resistance with rise in temperature, the current inereases. This increased current over the same area results in hot spots and breakdown of the BJT. PMOSFETS in higher voltage ratings have more conduction loss, he state of the art PMOSFETs a ilable with ratings upto 500. whereas BJTs are available with-zatings upto 1200 V, 800. A. INSULATED GATE BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR Uli} IGBT has been developed by combining into it the best qualities of both BJT and PMOSFET. Thus an IGBT possesses high input impedance like a PMOSFET and has low on-state power 4s in a BJT. Further, IGBT is free fro 2.7.1 Basic Structure Fig. 2.19 strates the basic structure of an IGBT, It i: ir manner as 4 power MOSFET. ‘There ig however, a major di eae in the same layer substrate at the drain in a PMOSFET js fi coin the substrate. The n+ substrate called collector C. Like g osrEn abit structure cells connected i SS _of n~ |, er is ealled body of GBT ee ‘late the depletion layer of pn- comma, ri Scanned with CamScanner