Power Electronics and Drives

Addis Ababa Science & Technology

University
College of Engineering
Department of Electromechanical Engineering
Power Electronics
By: Birhanemeskel A. (MSc in Mechatronics)
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Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• A power transistor is mainly a three-terminal semiconductor that is used to
amplify and switch on and off electrical signals and in electrical power
enhancement.
• It is a type of junction transistor which is designed to handle high current flowing
through it and high power.
• Having controlled turn-on and turn-off characteristics.
• Operated in the saturation region to be used for switching purpose resulting in a
low on-state voltage drop.
• Their switching speed is higher than thyristors but they have lower voltage and
current ratings.
• There are mostly used from low-to- medium voltage applications.
• The Most common Power Transistor Families are.
1. Bipolar junction transistors(BJTs)
2. Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs)
3. Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs)
4. Static Induction Transistors (SITs) 2
Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
Bipolar junction transistors(BJTs)
• A BJT is formed by adding a second p- or n- region to a pn junction diode. (becomes PNP or NPN).
• Has controlled turn on and turn off characteristics

▪ Has two junction (CBJ and BEJ)

▪ CBJ-Collector – base Junction
▪ BEJ-Base- Emitter Junction
▪ Has Three configuration
▪ The common base, common emitter and
common collector configuration.
▪ Common Emitter configuration is used
for switching application.

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• Consider a common emitter transistor

• Operation regions 2. Saturation Region

• There are three operating regions of a ▪ IB is high hence VCE low
transistor: saturation, cutoff, & active ▪ Acts as a Switch
1. Active region ▪ BE and BC forward biased
▪ Transistor amplifies base current. • 3. Cutoff region (off)
▪ As IB increase VCE decreases. • The transistor is off or the base
▪ BE is Forward biased while CB is current is not enough to turn it on
Reverse biased and BE and BC reverse biased
Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• Large Signal Model Analysis
• The equation relating the currents is 𝐼𝐸 = 𝐼𝐵 + 𝐼𝐶 .
• The base current is effectively the input current and the collector current is the
output current. The ratio of the collector current 𝐼𝐶 to base current 𝐼𝐵 is known as
the forward current gain, βF.
𝐼𝐶
𝛽𝑓 =
𝐼𝐵
The collector current has two components: one due to the base current and the other
is the leakage current of the CBJ.
𝐼𝐶 = 𝛽𝑓 𝐼𝐵 + 𝐼𝐶𝐸𝑂
• Where 𝐼𝐶𝐸𝑂 is the collector-to-emitter leakage
current with base open circuit and can be
considered negligible compared to 𝛽𝑓 𝐼𝐵 .
𝐼𝐸 ≈ 𝐼𝐵 + 𝛽𝑓 𝐼𝐵 ≈ 𝐼𝐵 1 + 𝛽𝑓 𝐼𝐶 = 𝛼𝑓 𝐼𝐸
1 𝛽𝑓 + 1 𝛽𝑓
𝐼𝐸 ≈ 𝐼𝐶 1 + = 𝐼𝐶 Where, 𝛼𝑓 = ( )
𝛽𝑓 𝛽𝑓 𝛽𝑓 +1

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• Let us consider the circuit of fig. below, where the transistor is operated as
a switch. 𝑉𝐵 − 𝑉𝐵𝐸
𝐼𝐵 =
𝑅𝐵
𝑉𝐶𝐸 = 𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝐼𝐶 𝑅𝐶 = 𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝛽𝑓 𝑅𝐶 𝐼𝐵
𝛽𝑓 𝑅𝐶
= 𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝑉𝐵 − 𝑉𝐵𝐸
𝑅𝐵
𝑉𝐶𝐸 = 𝑉𝐶𝐵 + 𝑉𝐵𝐸 −−−− −(1)
Equation (1) indicates that as long as 𝑉𝐶𝐸 ≥ 𝑉𝐵𝐸 ,
the CBJ is reverse biased and the transistor is in
the active region. The maximum collector current
in the active region, which can be obtained by
setting 𝑉𝐶𝐵 = 0 and 𝑉𝐶𝐸 = 𝑉𝐵𝐸 , is
𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝑉𝐶𝐸 𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝑉𝐵𝐸
𝐼𝐶𝑀 = =
𝑅𝐶 𝑅𝐶
and the corresponding value of base current is
𝐼𝐶𝑀
𝐼𝐵𝑀 =
𝛽𝑓

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• If the base current is increased above 𝐼𝐵𝑀 , 𝑉𝐵𝐸 increases, the collector current
increases, and the 𝑉𝐶𝐸 falls below 𝑉𝐵𝐸 . This continues until the CBJ is forward
biased with 𝑉𝐵𝐶 of about 0.4 to 0.5 V. The transistor then goes into saturation.
• The transistor saturation may be defined as the point above which any increase in
the base current does not increase the collector current significantly.
• In the saturation, the collector current remains almost constant. If the collector–
emitter saturation voltage is 𝑉𝐶𝐸 (𝑠𝑎𝑡), the collector current is
𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝑉𝐶𝐸 (𝑠𝑎𝑡)
𝐼𝐶𝑠 =
𝑅𝐶
and the corresponding value of base current is ,
𝐼𝐶𝑠
𝐼𝐵𝑠 =
𝛽𝑓
Normally, the circuit is designed so that 𝐼𝐵 is higher than 𝐼𝐵𝑠 . The ratio of 𝐼𝐵 to 𝐼𝐵𝑠
is called the overdrive factor (ODF):
𝐼𝐵
𝑂𝐷𝐹 =
𝐼𝐵𝑠

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
• and the ratio of 𝐼𝐶𝑠 to 𝐼𝐵 is called as forced β, βforced where
𝐼𝐶𝑠
𝛽𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑑 =
𝐼𝐵
The total power loss in the two junctions is 𝑃𝑇 = 𝑉𝐵𝐸 𝐼𝐵 + 𝑉𝐶𝐸 𝐼𝐶 .
A high value of ODF cannot reduce the collector–emitter voltage significantly. However, 𝑉𝐵𝐸
increases due to increased base current, resulting in increased power loss in the BEJ.

Example 1.5: The bipolar transistor is specified to have βF in the range of 8 to 40. The load
resistance is RC = 11 Ω. The dc supply voltage is VCC = 200 V and the input voltage to the base circuit
is VB = 10 V. If VCE1sat2 = 1.0 V and 𝑉𝐶𝐸 (𝑠𝑎𝑡) = 1.5 V, find (a) the value of RB that results in
saturation with an ODF of 5, (b) the 𝛽𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑑 , and (c) the power loss PT in the transistor.

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
Power MOSFET
• MOSFET stands for metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. It is a
field-effect transistor with a MOS structure. Typically, the MOSFET is a three-
terminal device with gate (G), drain (D) and source (S) terminals.
• A power MOSFET is a voltage controlled device and requires a small input
current.
• Has high switching speed.
• Have simple gate drive requirement

• Good switching time

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
IGBT –Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor
• IGBT combines the advantage of BJT and power MOSFET.
▪ Has high input impedance(MOSFETs).

▪ Low on-state conduction loss (BJT)

Power BJT
▪ Has good on-state characteristics
▪ Long switching time
▪ Current controlled devices with small current gain
▪ Requires complex base drive circuit to provide the base current during on-state.

Power MOSFET
• Good switching time
• Voltage controlled devices which requires very small current to switch on.
• Have simple gate drive requirement.

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
Thyristor
• Thyristors are four-layer pnpn power semiconductor devices.
• These devices switch between conducting and nonconducting states in response to
a control signal.
• Thyristors are used in timing circuits, AC motor speed control, light dimmers, and
switching circuits. Small thyristors are also used as pulse sources for large
thyristors.
• The thyristor family includes the silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR), the DIAC, the
TRIAC, the silicon-controlled switch (SCS), and the gate turn-off thyristor
(GTO).

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
SCR
• The SCR is the most commonly used electrical power controller. An SCR is
sometimes called a pnpn diode because it conducts electrical current in only one
direction.
• The Figure (a) above shows the SCR symbol. It has three terminals: the anode
(A), the cathode (K), and the gate (G). The anode and the cathode are the power
terminals and the gate is the control terminal. The structure of an SCR is shown in
Fig. b.
• When the SCR is forward-biased, that is, when the anode of an SCR is made
more positive with respect to the cathode, the two outermost pn-junctions are
forward-biased. The middle pn-junction is reverse-biased and the current cannot
flow. If a small gate current is now applied, it forward-biases the middle pn
junction and allows a much larger current to flow through the device.
• The SCR stays ON even if the gate current is removed. SCR shutoff occurs only
when the anode current becomes less than a level called the holding current (IH).

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives
Power Transistors
GTO -Gate Turn-Off Thyristor
• The GTO is a power semiconductor switch that turns ON by a positive gate
signal. It can be turned OFF by a negative gate signal. The GTO symbol is shown
in Fig. a below. and the GTO structure is shown in b. The GTO voltage and
current ratings are lower than those of SCRs. The GTO turn-off time is lower than
that of SCR. The turn-on time is the same as that of an SCR.

Electromechanical Engineering
 Power Electronics and Drives

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Electromechanical Engineering