However, other factors such as cooling, reliable performance in the field, the total cost of designing the board and the driving and protection of devices within applications, are frequently overlooked in the initial selection process.
During the last 3 to 4 years, several manufacturers of power semiconductors have introduced extremely efficient “Trench Field Stop” IGBTs. These IGBTs allow significant improvements in efficiency, because conduction and switching losses are greatly reduced in comparison to the industry offerings of a few years ago. Unfortunately, these improvements came at the expense of increased gate charge, reduced peak gate voltage, a reduced SCSOA rating, and more. Application scopes are limited for these new devices
when considering the costs of protecting IGBTs, driving them with high gate currents, applying meticulous attention to eliminating parasitic inductance in real-life circuits, and adding snubber circuits.
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