Power Electronics






Lecture 3: The Thyristor
Chapter 23: Mohan, Power Electronics

Erasmus Mundus Master Course in

Sustainable Transportation
and Electrical Power Systems

Dr. Giulio De Donato

The Thyristor

• Also known as Silicon Controlled Rectifiers (SCR)

• Oldest power semiconductor device to be still used: Invented by GE Research
Labs in 1957.
• Extremely high power handling capability.
• Latching switch: can be turned on by a control terminal (the gate) with a short
current pulse (hundreds of µs), but cannot be turned off by the same terminal.
• in terms of lateral dimensions, thyristors are among the largest decides made:
wafers as large as 10 cm in diameter are used to carry kA.

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I-V Characteristics (1/2)

• The maximum reverse working voltage -VRWM is up to 12 kV for silicon devices.

• Two stable modes of operation in the forward direction: “forward blocking” and
“on state” (up to 5 kA with a few volts of voltage drop).
• IH is the holding current, i.e. the minimum current that can flow through the
thyristor and maintain the device in the on state. VH is the corresponding holding
voltage.

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I-V Characteristics (2/2)

• The forward breakover voltage VBO is defined for zero gate current; for positive
gate current, BO will occur at lower voltages. VBO and VRWM decrease
reduce with
temperature. Tmax_junction = 125°C.
• The reverse off-state current is highly temperature dependent and increases
with temperature. The forward off-state current is also temperature dependent
and increases with temperature. At high temperatures it can be higher than the
reverse off-state current.

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Reverse Blocking State

• In the reverse blocking state, the anode is biased negatively with respect to
the cathode; J1 and J3 are reverse biased and J2 is forward biased.
• J1 supports the reverse voltage, because J3 has a low VBD due to the heavy
doping on both sides of the junction. breakdown voltage
• The reverse blocking capability of J1 is limited by the length of the n1 region.

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Forward Blocking State

• In the forward blocking state, J1 and J3 are forward biased and J2 is reverse
biased.
• The depletion region of J2 appears in n1, so this region determines the blocking
voltage capability for the forward blocking state as well: VBO ≅ VRWM.
usually the design choice
• Both transistors Q1 and Q2 are in the active region.
• At low frequencies, each BJT can be described by the Ebers-Moll equations.

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Forward Blocking State

• IC1 = -α1IE1 + ICO1 IC2 = -α2IE2 + ICO2

• α = InC/InE is the base transport factor and ICO is the collector leakage current
• by noting that IA = IE1 and IK = -IE2 = IA + IG and setting the sum of all currents in
one of the BJTs to zero one obtains:
• IA = (α2IG + ICO1 + ICO2)/[1-(α1 + α2)]
• In the blocking state, (α1 + α2) << 1, so IA is at most a few hundreds of mA.

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Turn On Behaviour (1/)

• If (α1 + α2) approaches unity, the anode current will become very large.
• If this occurs, the thyristor will be at the breakover point, where it goes into an
unstable, negative-resistance state. This region is unstable because of the
positive feedback connection of the two BJTs.
• In this region will carry itself to a stable on state.

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Turn On Behaviour (2/)

• The base transport factors depend inversely on the effective base thickness of
the transistors. As the forward voltage is increased above 0 V, the depletion
layer of J2 grows into the n1 region, causing the effective base thickness of Q1 to
be reduced and α1 to increase. Similarly, the extension of the depletion layer of
J2 into the p2 region causes the effective base thickness of Q2 to be reduced
and α2 to increase.

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Turn On Behaviour (3/)

• The combination of the positive feedback connection of the two transistors and
of the variable base transport factors is what makes it possible for the gate
terminal to turn-on a thyristor.
• If a positive gate current is applied, current flows from the gate to the cathode.
• A significant amount of electron injection will occur across the forward biased J3
from the cathode (i.e. the n2 emitter of Q2) into the p2 base of Q2.

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Turn On Behaviour (4/)

• The gate current is amplified by the NPN transistor.

• Some electrons will reach the low doped n1 region, which acts as a collector of
the NPN transistor and base of the PNP transistor.
• The gate current is further amplified by the PNP transistor, since its collector is
connected to the gate.
• The current amplification effect is current dependent. As soon as the current in
the gate region becomes so high that (α1 + α2)≥1, the thyristor is triggered.

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Turn On Behaviour (5/)

• The thyristor starts firing locally, at the point where the trigger current density is
highest. The triggered area spreads at about 30-100 µm/µs (plasma spreading
velocity), so for a 10 cm diameter thyristor, it takes about 1 ms for the entire
surface to become conductive.
• The silicon may heat up locally, so the rate of current rise must be limited.
• Undesired triggering may occur due to:
• dV/dt (capacitive displacement currents);
• exceeding the breakover voltage (overhead firing);
• triggering by light or excessive temperature.

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Turn On Behaviour (6/)

• The cathode of the smaller thyristor is connected to the gate of the main
thyristor and is used to amplify the trigger current for the main thyristor. This
structure is known as an amplifying gate thyristor.
• The trigger energy for the main thyristor is taken from the main circuit.
• The finger-shaped amplifying gate further improves the critical di/dt.

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On State Operation

• In the on state there is strong minority carrier injection in all four regions of the
device.
• Junction J2 is forward biased and the BJTs are saturated (i.e. on).
• Only a small voltage drop arises due to conductivity modulation.

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Turn Off Behaviour

• To turn the thyristor off, the external circuit must reduce the anode current below
the holding current for a specific amount of time. During this time, internal
recombination and carrier sweep out will pull the BJTs out of saturation and into
the active region, thus turning the thyristor off via the regenaritve connection of
Q1 and Q2.
• tq is the circuit commutated turn-off time (100-500 us). Time that elapses from
zero current crossing until the blocking voltage can be reapplied without the
thyristor re-firing.
• Fast thyristors have tq reduced to 10-100 us (by reducing carrier lifetime).

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Thyristor Family

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