tgd-1x 1/5 AN4840 application note www.dynexsemi.com in all thyristor datasheets a set of curves showing device gate characteristics is given. this gives information fundamental to the correct triggering of the thyristor but the right interpretation sometimes causes problems. note, the curves should be used in conjunction with the table of ratings and trigger characteristics given elsewhere in each data sheet. this table gives the relevant test conditions. in this application note two types of gate curve are shown for dcr1596sw (fig. 1a to c). fig 1(a) shows the traditional format with logarithmic ??and ??axes. this version allows a wide range of gate current and voltage to be shown. fig 1(b) and 1(c) show curves with linear axes (2 graphs are needed to be the equivalent of fig 1(a)). when gate drive load lines are to be superimposed linear versions are much more user friendly - see below. information provided by curves i gt and v gt the value of gate current, i g and voltage, v g to be supplied to the thyristor to guarantee simple triggering should always be greater than the appropriate data book values of i gt and v gt . simple triggering is adequate for low di/dt applications only - see below. note, that although the device may trigger at i g and v g values below the i gt and v gt values shown, no guarantee can be given. i gd and v gd are the values of i g and v g below which the thyristor can be guaranteed not to fire. this is important for guarding against spurious triggering. because it is very dependent on applied anode - cathode voltage and junction temperature i gd is not provided as standard information in datasheets. however, test information can be provided by the factory in many cases. fig.1a 100 10 1 0.1 0.001 0.1 0.01 1.0 10 v fgm lower limit 1% upper limit 99% t j = 25 ? c t j = -40 ? c v gd gate trigger voltage v gt - (v) gate trigger current i gt - (a) table gives pulse power p g m in watts pulse width s 100 200 500 1ms 10ms 50 150 150 150 150 20 100 150 150 150 100 - 400 150 125 100 25 - frequency hz 100w 50w 20w 10w t j = 125 ? c 150w load line 20v, 10 ? AN4840 gate triggering and gate characteristics application note replaces september 2000 version, AN4840-3.0 AN4840-3.1 july 2002
tgd-1x 2/5 www.dynexsemi.com AN4840 application note fig.1c 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 012345678910 gate trigger current, i gt - (a) gate trigger voltage, v gt - (v) upper limit lower limit 5w 10w 20w 50w 100w 150w load line 20v,10 ? b fig.1b 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 gate trigger current, i gt - (a) gate trigger voltage, v gt - (v) t j = 125 ? c t j = 25 ? c t j = -40 ? c preferred gate drive area upper limit lower limit pulse width s 100 200 500 1ms 10ms 50 150 150 150 150 20 100 150 150 150 100 - 400 150 125 100 25 - frequency hz table gives pulse power p gm in watts load line 10v,14.3 ? load line 10v,16.6 ? b a
tgd-1x 3/5 AN4840 application note www.dynexsemi.com time current high initial trigger current maintaining or back-porch level di g dt (to be as fast as possible) current - (a) voltage - (v) v oc (open circuit voltage) i sc (short circuit current) resistive load line - internal resistance = v oc i sc gate characteristic this characteristic is that of the forward biased gate-to-cathode junction, together with associated on-chip series and parallel resistors, e.g. gate-to-emitter shorts. the graph shows the upper limit i.e. highest impedance and lower limit i.e. lowest impedance for all thyristors of that type likely to be manufactured. the limits take into account the temperature range 40 to +125 ? c. all devices will have characteristics between these limits. gate characteristic information is used in conjunction with firing circuit output load lines to pre-determine operating values of gate current and voltage - see below. gate rating limits thyristors turn on best when ig and vg values are well above i gt and v gt limits - see below. however, peak gate current, gate voltage and power rating limits should not be exceeded. v fgm - peak forward gate voltage if the open circuit voltage of the firing circuit exceeds this rating (usually 30 volts) there is a danger of internal voltage breakdown. in practice, 50 or more volts can often be achieved but is not guaranteed since some internal device constructions are limited. i fgm - peak forward gate current this rating is determined by the current carrying capability of internal gate leads, bonds and surface metallisation of the thyristor. note that the x axis of the graph is limited to 10 amps so that the ifgm limit of large thyristors is not shown. p gm - peak gate power the average heating effect of the gate current is the issue here. thus, a narrow pulse of high p gm is as permissible as a wide pulse of low p gm . included on the graph is a table showing maximum permitted peak gate power for various pulse widths and repetition rates. also on the graph are lines of constant power. these lines are the power limits corresponding to the pulse powers given in the table and are used in conjunction with gate drive load lines. matching the gate drive/firing circuit to the thyristor triggering requirements the basic approach is to draw the output load line of the firing circuit onto the gate characteristic curve. it is usually assumed that the gate drive has a purely resistive linear characterisation - fig 2. the characteristic is defined by its open circuit source voltage v oc and its short circuit current i sc . the straight line between these 2 points represents the internal source resistance fig.2 output load line for gate drive fig.2 output load line for gate drive
tgd-1x 4/5 www.dynexsemi.com AN4840 application note of the gate drive. gate drive output is often defined in terms of its open circuit voltage and internal source resistance. to select the correct gate drive load line it is useful to draw several possibilities onto the characteristic curve (fig 1). compare the 20v, 10 ? line drawn onto the logarithmic and linear axis versions. clearly, the linear version is much easier to work with. the first requirement for the load line is that it must pass through the preferred gate drive area to the right of the appropriate i gt , v gt limit point. for operation down to -40 ? c, this is point b. for +25 ? c minimum operation temperature, point a applies. load line 10v, 14.3 ? is adequate for 25 ? c operation but load line 10v, 16.6 ? is not since it crosses the 25 ? c zone of uncertain triggering . unfortunately, most applications demand gate drive levels well above the minimum, with good di/dt performance being the most demanding. for dcr1596 a 20v, 10 ? load line is preferred. this load line lies well to the right of point b. note also that 10 watts peak power is not exceeded. more on i gt , v ggt , gate pulse widths and recommended gate drive two basic circuit connections should be considered. 1) using single thyristor elements. 2) using series and parallel combinations. first consider single thyristor elements. low values of triggering i g and v g are satisfactory for simple resistive loads with minimal overload currents and low di/dt. in this near-ideal situation a simple pulse of 10 s or less would suffice, with ig only slightly more than i gt . in practice, this situation is unrealistic and an appropriate gate pulse shape must be chosen to match the application. fig. 3 shows the general shape for a single gate pulse. it consists of an initial short, fast rising high amplitude section followed by a longer, low amplitude back-porch section. the back-porch section has to be long enough to allow an inductive load anode current to rise to the device latching current. in most applications a cr snubber network is connected across the thyristor. because of the high di/dt of the snubber discharge current on thyristor triggering the initial gate pulse should be of high amplitude and rate of rise. where the load itself is capacitive, or very low inductance, circuit di/dt levels are even higher and hard gate drives are needed. for example, the gate drive recommendation for dcr1596 to achieve its di/dt ratings of 300a/ s is 20 volt, 10 ohms, with current rise time less than 0.5 s. high gate drive is only necessary for the duration of the turn-on period - a few microseconds. after that the gate amplitude may be allowed to fall to a low maintaining value, i.e. the back-porch current. the function of the back-porch current is to allow the thyristor to be retriggered if the anode current transiently dips below the holding current value. however, it is quite common for the gate signal to be needed for several milliseconds after initial triggering. this is done by providing a train of pulses for the duration of the triggering period since a single long pulse would require too much power from the gate drive. series and parallel combinations all the above remarks relating to triggering of single thyristors apply equally to series and parallel combinations. an additional requirement is to ensure that all thyristors in the combination turn on as nearly together as is possible. this is done by reducing the d t gd value, i.e. the difference between individual device delay times. for this, a hard gate drive is also required. gate drive recommendations from the above it is clear that a hard gate drive (high current, high voltage, fast rise time) is needed for the majority of applications. a low power gate drive is likely to cause triggering problems. the basic pulse should have a high current front end and low current back-porch. in some situations a train of these pulses may be needed.
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