IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
Active Clamping Circuit With Status Feedback
for Series-Connected HV-IGBTs
Ting Lu, Member, IEEE, Zhengming Zhao, Senior Member, IEEE, Shiqi Ji, Student Member, IEEE,
Hualong Yu, Student Member, IEEE, and Liqiang Yuan, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Active clamping circuits can effectively suppress the
voltage imbalance between series-connected insulated-gate bipolar
transistors (IGBTs). However, while the active clamping circuit is
conducting, extra current is injected into the gate of the IGBT,
the gate voltage increases, and the IGBT operates in the active
region. Therefore, long time conduction and frequent actions of
the active clamping circuit will lead to extremely high switching
loss of the IGBT with high collector-emitter voltage and serious
switching loss imbalance between the series-connected IGBTs,
which imperils the efficiency and safety of the system, particu-
larly in the applications of high-voltage IGBT (HV-IGBT) series
connection. In this paper, a novel active clamping circuit with
status feedback is proposed for series-connected HV-IGBTs. A
high-speed status feedback subcircuit is designed for transforming
the operation status of an active clamping circuit into optical signal
and feeding it back to the control system. According to the feed-
back signals, the microcontroller regulates the switching-on time
and switching-off time of the series-connected HV-IGBTs’ drive
signals timely in order to implement voltage balancing and, thus,
to restrain the actions of active clamping circuits. By applying
this voltage balancing method to the HV-IGBT series connection
circuit, the voltage balancing performance is expected to improve,
and high switching loss and serious switching loss imbalance are
expected to be suppressed. Experimental results verify the validity
and superiorities of the proposed voltage balancing circuit and
control strategy.
Index Terms—Active clamping, high-voltage insulated-gate
bipolar transistor (HV-IGBT), series connection, status feedback,
voltage balancing.
I. I NTRODUCTION
S ERIES connection of power semiconductor devices is a
direct and effective method to increase the rated voltage
of power electronic equipment and, therefore, is more and
more widely used in high-voltage and high-power converters
Manuscript received July 3, 2013; revised October 31, 2013; accepted
January 23, 2014. Date of publication February 26, 2014; date of current
version September 16, 2014. Paper 2013-PEDCC-465.R1, presented at the
2012 International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, Sapporo,
Japan, October 21–24, and approved for publication in the IEEE T RANS -
ACTIONS ON I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS by the Power Electronic Devices
and Components Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. This
work was supported in part by the Power Electronics Science and Education
Development Program of the Delta Environmental and Educational Foundation
under Grant DREG2013002 and in part by the Program of the State Key
Laboratory of Power System at Tsinghua University under Grant SKLD13M09.
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation
of Power System and Generation Equipment, Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: philiplut@gmail.
com; zhaozm@tsinghua.edu.cn; jsq10@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn; yu-hl10@mails.
tsinghua.edu.cn; ylq@tsinghua.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2014.2308356
0093-9994 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
3579
in recent years. The most important requirement for the safe
operation of series-connected power semiconductor devices is
distributing dc-link voltage of the converter to every series-
connected device as equally as possible in both static switching
state and dynamic switching state [1]–[5].
As an effective scheme for suppressing the overvoltage of
the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), an active clamp-
ing circuit is widely applied in the protection of the IGBT
and other applications such as voltage balancing for series-
connected IGBTs [6]–[9]. When the voltage on IGBT exceeds
the threshold value, the active clamping circuit conducts, injects
current into the gate of the IGBT, and accordingly increases
the gate voltage. This way, the high voltage on IGBT can be
restrained [10]–[18]. However, during the conduction of the
active clamping circuit, the IGBT is forced to operate in the
active region. Therefore, long time conduction and frequent
actions of the active clamping circuit result in high switching
loss of the IGBT [19], [20]. When active clamping circuits
are applied to high-voltage IGBTs (HV-IGBTs), because of the
high-power density of the device, this problem becomes more
prominent.
Generally, the active clamping circuit, which is connected
across the collector and emitter of the IGBT, is composed of
several Zener diodes connected in series. The threshold voltage
VZ of the active clamping circuit is defined as the total break-
down voltage of these series-connected Zener diodes. When the
collector-gate voltage VCG is higher than VZ , the Zener diodes
are broken down. VCG is clamped at the threshold voltage VZ .
Normally, the gate-emitter voltage VGE varies between −15 V
and +15 V. When the active clamping circuit is applied to HV-
IGBT, its threshold voltage VZ is several kilovolts, which is
much higher than the amplitude of VGE . Therefore, when the
active clamping circuit conducts, VCE = VCG + VGE = VZ +
VGE ≈ VZ . The active clamping circuit can be considered to
be conductive when the collector-emitter voltage VCE reaches
the threshold voltage VZ . During the conduction duration of the
active clamping circuit, VCE is clamped around VZ . After VCE
dropping below VZ , the active clamping circuit turns back to
the blocking state. As shown in Fig. 1, during the switching-off
process of the IGBT, higher active clamping threshold voltage
results in later conducting and earlier blocking of the active
clamping circuit. If VZ is higher than the peak value of VCE ,
the active clamping circuit will not conduct during the entire
switching-off process. Thus, long time conduction and frequent
actions of the active clamping circuit can be avoided by setting
a higher active clamping threshold voltage value. However,
using the conventional active clamping circuit, higher threshold
3580 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014

Fig. 1. Effects of active clamping circuits with different threshold voltages.

voltage will lead to higher spike voltage on IGBT and worse

voltage balancing performance of the series connection circuit.
If the control system of the series connection circuit is
aware of the operation statuses of active clamping circuits, the
microcontroller can actively regulate the time delay between
drive signals of the series-connected IGBTs in real time so
as to achieve voltage balance. At the same time, long time
conduction and frequent actions of the active clamping circuits
can be avoided while the switching losses of IGBTs can be
suppressed.
Considering that the normal conduction duration of the active
clamping circuit is very short, which is commonly tens to
hundreds of nanoseconds, the response speed of the active
clamping status feedback circuit must be high enough. The
feedback signals have large effects on the voltage balancing
performance and the safety of the series-connected IGBTs.
Therefore, the measurement and feedback must be accurate Fig. 2. Active clamping circuit with status feedback.
with strong anti-electromagnetic interference (EMI) capability.
In this paper, an active clamping circuit with high-speed
status feedback and a voltage balancing control strategy are
proposed and applied to series-connected HV-IGBTs. The
performances of the proposed voltage balancing method are
verified by experiments.

II. ACTIVE C LAMPING C IRCUIT

A novel active clamping circuit for series-connected
HV-IGBTs, which includes a high-speed status feedback sub-
circuit, is designed as shown in Fig. 2.
This active clamping circuit is a combination and improve-
ment of the basic Zener diode active clamping scheme and
the scheme of increasing Miller capacitor. Defining VZ1 is the
total breakdown voltage of the series-connected Zener diodes
Z1 to Zn , VZ2 is the total breakdown voltage of Z11 to Z1 m , Fig. 3. Switching-off process of a single HV-IGBT with the active clamping
assuming that the collector-emitter voltage VCE of HV-IGBT circuit.
is approximately equal to the collector-gate voltage VCG , the
switching-off process of a single HV-IGBT with the active
clamping circuit can be divided into three phases, as shown in In Phase 3, VCE > VZ1 + VZ2 , Zener diodes Z1 to Zn and
Fig. 3. Z11 to Z1 m are all broken down. Considering the voltage drop
In Phase 1, VCE < VZ1 , all of the Zener diodes are blocked; on R2 , VCE is clamped at the voltage, which is approximately
thus, the active clamping circuit does not affect the switching equal to VZ1 + VZ2 until the end of the switching-off process.
off of the HV-IGBT, VCE increases rapidly. In Phase 2 and Phase 3, the active clamping circuit injects
In Phase 2, VZ1 < VCE < VZ1 + VZ2 , Zener diodes Z1 to Zn current into the gate of the HV-IGBT, suppresses the falling of
are broken down while Z11 to Z1 m are still blocked, capacitor gate voltage, and extends the HV-IGBT’s operation time in the
C1 is gradually charged; therefore, the rising rate of VCE is active region; thus, the rising rate and the voltage spike of VCE
reduced, and the voltage imbalance is dynamically restrained. are suppressed. However, at the same time, the loss of active
LU et al.: ACTIVE CLAMPING CIRCUIT WITH STATUS FEEDBACK FOR SERIES-CONNECTED HV-IGBTs 3581

duration and switching loss energy of T1 between t1 and t2 can

be solved through (1) as
2
VZ1 IG
t2 − t1 = (3)
4A2
3/2
2VZ1 AIL
Et1−t2,T1 = (4)
3IG
where IL is the load current of the series-connected HV-IGBTs.
The analysis on T1 between t2 and t3 is similar, but CGC
is approximately equal to C1 in Fig. 2 because Zener diodes
Z1 to Zn are broken down while Z11 to Z1 m are still blocked.
Fig. 4. Switching-off process of series-connected HV-IGBTs with active Therefore, the time duration and switching loss energy of T1
clamping circuits. between t2 and t3 are

clamping circuit and the switching loss of HV-IGBT rapidly C1 VZ2

t3 − t2 = (5)
increase while the switching speed is slowed down. IG
When active clamping circuits are applied to the HV-IGBT C1 VZ2 (2VZ1 + VZ2 )IL
series connection circuit, supposing there is an asynchronous Et2−t3,T1 = . (6)
2IG
switching-off delay Δt between the two series-connected HV-
IGBTs (T1 and T2), the switching-off process is presented in During the period from t3 to t6 , Zener diodes Z1 to Zn and
Fig. 4. The HV-IGBT T1 switches off earlier than T2 and, thus, Z11 to Z1 m in the active clamping circuit of T1 are all broken
withstands higher VCE voltage. The active clamping circuit down. VCE1 is clamped at the voltage, which is approximately
of T1 conducts, whereas the active clamping circuit of T2 equal to VZ1 + VZ2 .
keeps blocking during the transient. Hence, the switching-off Considering the duration between the time that VGE starts
behavior of T1 is in accordance with Fig. 3. Durations from t1 falling and the time that VCE starts rising is only decided
to t2 , from t2 to t3 , and from t3 to t6 in Fig. 4 correspond to by the drive circuit and IGBT parasitic parameters (mainly
Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 in Fig. 3, respectively. The active CGC ) whose differences can be neglected between the series-
clamping circuit limits the spike of collector-emitter voltage of connected IGBTs, the time duration between t1 and t4 is also
T1 (VCE1 ) and, thus, suppresses the voltage imbalance between equal to Δt. Therefore, the time duration between t3 and t4 is
the series-connected HV-IGBTs. The behavior of T2 is not 2
VZ1 IG C1 VZ 2
influenced by the active clamping circuit because the collector- t4 − t3 = Δt − 2
− . (7)
4A IG
emitter voltage VCE2 never reaches the threshold voltage VZ1
during the switching-off process. The switching loss energy of T1 produced in the period from t3
This paper focuses on the active clamping circuits applied to t4 is
to the HV-IGBT series connection circuit. Therefore, based  2

VZ1 IG C1 VZ2
on Fig. 4, the behaviors and switching losses of the series- Et3−t4,T1 = IL (VZ1 + VZ2 ) Δt − − . (8)
connected HV-IGBTs are analyzed as below. 4A2 IG
At t0 , the gate voltage of T1 (VGE1 ) begins to fall. After a The collector-emitter voltage of T2 (VCE2 ) starts rising at
period of gate discharging, at t1 , VCE1 starts rising normally t4 and reaches Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 at t5 . Vdc refers to the dc-link
because all of the Zener diodes (Z1 to Zn and Z11 to Z1 m ) voltage. In this period, VCE1 and the collector current of IGBTs
in the active clamping circuit of T1 are blocked. Between t1 (IC ) keep their values as VZ1 + VZ2 and IL , respectively. The
and t2 , VGE1 remains the unchanged value Vmiller , which is behavior of T2 can also be described by (1) and (2). Therefore,
also called the Miller stage. Therefore, the rising rate of VCE1 the time duration and switching losses between t4 and t5 can be
satisfies derived as
dVCE1 Vmiller − VGE(off) IG
= = (1) (Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 )IG
2
dt RG CGC CGC t5 − t 4 = 2
(9)
4A
where VGE(off) is gate voltage in the steady off-state. RG (Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 )IG
2

represents the gate resistance, as shown in Fig. 2. IG refers to Et4−t5,T1 = IL (VZ1 + VZ2 ) · (10)
4A2
the gate current. CGC is a voltage-dependent capacitance and
2(Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 )3/2 AIL
can be expressed as Et4−t5,T2 = . (11)
3IG
A
CGC (VCG ) = √ (2) When the sum of VCE1 and VCE2 reaches Vdc , the collector
VCG
current of IGBTs (IC ) starts falling. After a period tf , which
where A is a constant that is equal to the value of capacitance is also called the fall time of IGBT, IC falls to the tail current.
when VCG is 1 V but has different unit. VCE1 reaches VZ1 at t2 . The fall time tf is current dependent and can be found in the
Considering VCG1 ≈ VCE1 at most time in this period, the time datasheet of IGBT. In this period (from t5 to t6 ), the active
3582 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014

TABLE I it can be deduced that

S WITCHING L OSSES OF A SYNCHRONOUS
S ERIES -C ONNECTED HV-IGBT S
2(VZ1 + VZ2 )3/2 AIL
Et1−t2,T1 + Et2−t3,T1 > . (17)
3IG

Due to

2(VZ1 + VZ2 )3/2 AIL 2(Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 )3/2 AIL

+
3IG 3IG
√ 3/2
2Vdc AIL
> (18)
3IG

it can be derived that the difference between the total switching

losses in asynchronous conditions (Etotal,T1 + Etotal,T2 ) and
 
in synchronous conditions (Etotal,T1 + Etotal,T2 ) satisfies
 
(Etotal,T1 + Etotal,T2 ) − (Etotal,T1 + Etotal,T2 )

clamping circuit maintains VCE1 = VZ1 + VZ2 while the wave- > Et3−t4,T1 + Et4−t5,T1 = IL (VZ1 + VZ2 )
form of VCE2 can be seen as triangle approximately, as shown  
in Fig. 4. Assuming that the stray inductance of commutating (Vdc − 2VZ1 − VZ2 )IG
2
C1 VZ2
× Δt − − . (19)
loop is Ls , which can be calculated using partial element equiv- 4A2 IG
alent circuit method in Ansoft Q3D software [21], the average
value of VCE2 in this period is (Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 ) + Ls IL /tf . This extra switching loss is caused by the action of the active
Thus, the peak value of VCE2 (at the vertex of the triangle) is clamping circuit of T1 because the active clamping circuit of T2
(Vdc − VZ1 − VZ2 ) + 2Ls IL /tf . Based on this approximation, keeps blocking during the entire asynchronous transient. More-
 
the switching losses of T1 and T2 in the duration between t5 over, because Etotal,T1 > Etotal,T2 and Etotal,T1 = Etotal,T2 ,
and t6 are deduced as it is obvious that
1 
Etotal,T1 > Etotal,T1 . (20)
Et5−t6,T1 = IL tf (VZ2 + VZ1 ) (12)
2
1 1 It can be concluded from the given analyses that the action
Et5−t6,T2 = IL tf (Vdc − VZ2 − VZ1 ) + Ls IL2 . (13)
2 2 of the active clamping circuit not only increases the switching
loss of the HV-IGBT, which withstands higher collector-emitter
Since most switching losses of T1 and T2 and their difference voltage, but also increases the total switching loss of the series
are produced in the duration between t1 and t6 , the analyses connection circuit. Consequently, long time conduction and
on the switching losses in the tail current period (after t6 ) are frequent actions of the active clamping circuit must be avoided
omitted. The switching losses in each period of the switching- in order to reduce the loss and the switching time of HV-IGBT.
off process are listed in Table I. For this reason, the operation statuses of active clamping
In the synchronous switching-off process of series-connected circuits are fed back to the control system. Based on the
HV-IGBTs, VCE1 and VCE2 are balanced, and the active clamp- feedback signals, the microcontroller regulates the drive signals
ing circuits keep blocking. Through the similar process as the of series-connected HV-IGBTs in order to achieve synchronous
deduction of switching loss of T2 in the asynchronous condi- switching and voltage balance. This way, the spike of VCE
tion, the total switching losses of T1 and T2 in the synchronous and the voltage imbalance of the series connection circuit are
condition are derived as actively suppressed through closed-loop control. After the reg-
3/2 ulation process of the voltage balancing control, the HV-IGBT
  Vdc AIL 1 1
Etotal,T1 = Etotal,T2 = √ + IL tf Vdc + Ls IL2 . (14) series connection circuit operates in synchronous condition.
3 2IG 4 4 Thus, the active clamping circuits will not conduct for long
Accordingly, time or operate frequently. According to (14), (19), and (20),
high switching losses can be avoided, and the switching losses
√ 3/2
  2Vdc AIL 1 1 of the series-connected HV-IGBTs are balanced.
Etotal,T1 +Etotal,T2 = + IL tf Vdc + Ls IL2 . (15) In the condition of two HV-IGBTs series connection, two
3IG 2 2
threshold values (VZ1 and VZ1 + VZ2 ) of the active clamping
The sum of the second and third terms on the right is equal to circuit are designed according to the experience-based rules as
Et5−t6,T1 + Et5−t6,T2 . Considering C1 is much larger than the follows [22]:
gate-to-collector capacitance of HV-IGBT, that is
0.6Vdc < VZ1 < 0.65Vdc (21)
A
C1 > √ (16)
VZ1 0.65Vdc < VZ1 + VZ2 < 0.75Vdc . (22)
LU et al.: ACTIVE CLAMPING CIRCUIT WITH STATUS FEEDBACK FOR SERIES-CONNECTED HV-IGBTs
Moreover, in order to avoid the overvoltage of HV-IGBT
VZ1 + VZ2 < VCES . (23)
Meanwhile, the threshold voltage VZ1 is required to be higher
than the peak voltage of the normal and balanced switching-
off process in order to avoid the action of the active clamping
circuit in synchronous condition (after the regulation process of
the voltage balancing control), that is,
1 Considering the operation condition of the active clamping
VZ1 > (Vdc + 0.8Ls IL /tf ). (24)
2 circuit, several characteristic requirements of the status feed-
Equation (21)–(24) indicate the proper value ranges for thresh-
old voltages (VZ1 and VZ1 + VZ2 ) of the active clamping circuit.
The specific threshold voltage values may need fine adjustments
based on the preliminary test results. Therefore, it is suggested
that the active clamping circuit reserves several packaging
places for extra Zener diodes.
The function of resistor R2 is limiting the current in the active
clamping circuit; thus, its resistance should satisfy
Vdc − VZ1
R2 > (25)
IZ
where IZ is the maximum current of the Zener diodes.
The effect of capacitor C1 is related to the dynamic behavior
of HV-IGBT; therefore, C1 should be designed through simu-
lation using the physics-based model of HV-IGBT [23]. After
the switching-off process with the active clamping action, C1 is
discharged through the resistor R1 . This discharging must finish
before the next switching-off process; thus, R1 should satisfy
Ts 1
R1 < = (26)
3C1 3C1 fs
where Ts refers to the switching period, whereas fs represents
the switching frequency of the HV-IGBT series connection
circuit.
R3 is the sampling resistor, whose function is converting the
current of the active clamping circuit into the input voltage of
the status feedback subcircuit. As shown in Fig. 2, the power
supply voltage for the comparator chip in the status feedback
subcircuit is 5 V [24], which is also the maximum valid input
voltage of the status feedback subcircuit. The maximum current
of the active clamping circuit is (Vdc − VZ1 )/R2 . In order to
guarantee that the input voltage of the status feedback subcircuit
is valid when the current of the active clamping circuit reaches
its maximum value, the sampling resistor R3 should satisfy
5R2
R3 < . (27)
Vdc − VZ1
Generally, (Vdc − VZ1 )  5 V; thus, R3  R2 . The sampling
resistor does not influence the operation of the active clamping
circuit.
III. S TATUS F EEDBACK S UBCIRCUIT
The status feedback subcircuit of the active clamping cir-
cuit is illustrated in the frame with a dotted line in Fig. 2.
During Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the switching-off process, the
3583
active clamping circuit injects current into the gate of the HV-
IGBT. When the current of the active clamping circuit (Iclamp )
exceeds threshold ITH1 , the feedback signal received by the
microcontroller turns into a high level, the active clamping
circuit is considered to be conducting. After Iclamp falling down
to threshold ITH2 , the feedback signal turns to a low level, the
microcontroller regards the active clamping circuit as blocking.
This way, the status feedback subcircuit informs the control
system of the operation status of the active clamping circuit.
back subcircuit are satisfied through the design:
A. High Speed
The time scale of active clamping feedback signal is very
short, which is commonly from tens of nanoseconds to hun-
dreds of nanoseconds. Therefore, the devices in the feedback
circuit should have fast response and high transfer speed. In
order to transform and transfer the feedback signal timely,
a high-speed comparator (ADCMP600) and a 10-MBd fiber
optic transmitter (HFBR-1528) and receiver (HFBR-2528) are
adopted. Here, 10 MBd is the signaling rate of the communi-
cation link. MBd means mega-Bd, which refers to the number
of status changes of a communication link in 1 s. Generally, the
switching frequency of HV-IGBT is lower than 1 kHz, which
means the number of status changes of the active clamping
feedback signal in 1 s is smaller than 4000 (one switching
period contains two switching processes; one signal pulse con-
tains two signal status changes). Therefore, the 10-MBd signal-
ing rate of the selected fiber optic transmitter and receiver meets
the requirement of the status feedback subcircuit. However, as
previously mentioned, the pulse width of the active clamping
feedback signal is very narrow (from tens of nanoseconds to
hundreds of nanoseconds). Thus, the critical requirement that
the fiber optic components need to satisfy is identifying the
narrow signal pulse. It can be seen from the datasheet of HFBR-
1528 and HFBR-2528 that the maximum pulse-width distortion
is 30 ns [25]. Therefore, the selected fiber optic link is able
to identify the signal pulse with pulse width as narrow as
30 ns, which also meets the requirement of the status feedback
subcircuit. The fiber optic transmitter is directly driven by the
comparator so as to avoid the signal transmission delay caused
by an additional optical drive circuit.
B. Accuracy
The feedback signal has a significant effect on the voltage
balancing performance and safe operation of the HV-IGBT
series connection circuit. However, the signal distortions are
introduced both in sampling and signal transfer processes.
Therefore, the precision of the status feedback subcircuit is
estimated and calibrated according to the test results, which will
be described later in this section.
C. Anti-EMI
In HV-IGBT applications, the intensive electromagnetism
pulse causes intense EMI, which may disturb the signal of
3584 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
TABLE II
T EST DATA OF S TATUS F EEDBACK S UBCIRCUIT
TABLE III
B ILL OF M ATERIAL OF S TATUS F EEDBACK S UBCIRCUIT
status feedback subcircuit. Hysteresis comparison link and op-
tical fiber guarantee the reliable operation of the status feedback
subcircuit in the environment with intense EMI. The feedback
signal is also transmitted by fiber optic, which is more reliable
and has strong anti-EMI capability.
The status feedback subcircuit can be tested by applying a
square-wave voltage, which is generated by a programmable
signal generator, on the sampling resistor R3 , and measuring
the output signal of the fiber optic receiver (input signal of
the microcontroller). Some test data under input signals with
different frequencies are listed in Table II, where rise delay
is the delay time between the input and output of the status
feedback subcircuit when the input voltage changes from a low
level to a high level, fall delay represents the delay time between
the input and output of the status feedback subcircuit when the
input voltage changes from a high level to a low level, and Tin
and Tout refer to the pulse width measured at the input and
output of the status feedback subcircuit, respectively.
It can be concluded from the test results that the response
of the status feedback subcircuit is very fast, which guarantees
the instantaneity of sampling. The bandwidth of the status
feedback subcircuit is at least 16 MHz (maximum output fre-
quency of the signal generator). In other words, the shortest
active clamping conduction duration that can be identified by
the status feedback subcircuit and the microcontroller is no
longer than 1 s/16 MHz/2 = 31.25 ns. Furthermore, the delay
time between the input and output of the subcircuit keeps
approximately constant with different input signal frequencies.
According to the test data, the microcontroller can calibrate
the sampled conduction duration of the active clamping circuit
accurately, which is the basis of the precise control on the drive
signals of series-connected HV-IGBTs.
The bill of material of the status feedback subcircuit is
presented as Table III.
IV. VOLTAGE BALANCING C ONTROL S TRATEGY
During the switching-on process of the two HV-IGBTs series
connection circuit, the device that switches on later or slower
withstands higher VCE in the dynamic process. Accordingly, its
active clamping conduction duration in this switching-on pro-
cess is longer than the other HV-IGBT. This voltage imbalance
can be reduced by advancing the switching-on time of the HV-
IGBT with higher dynamic VCE for a period of time Δton in
the next switching-on process.
Conversely, during the switching-off process of the series
connection circuit, the device that switches off earlier or faster
withstands higher VCE and has longer active clamping con-
duction duration than the other HV-IGBT in this dynamic
process. The voltage imbalance can be reduced by delaying the
switching-off time of the HV-IGBT with higher dynamic VCE
for a period of time Δtoff in the next switching-off process.
Using the proposed active clamping circuit with status feed-
back, the voltage balancing control strategy is designed based
on the principle above. During the kth switching-on process,
by sampling the feedback signals of active clamping circuits,
the microcontroller obtains the active clamping conduction
durations tAC1 and tAC2 of the series-connected HV-IGBTs
T1 and T2, respectively. After the switching-on process ends,
the microcontroller calculates the regulation time of the next
switching-on process (Δton ) through a proportional-integral
(PI) regulator as
Ion (k) = Ion (k − 1)
+ kI [tAC1 (k) − tAC2 (k)] (28)
Pon (k) = kP [tAC1 (k) − tAC2 (k)] (29)
Δton (k + 1) = Ion (k) + Pon (k) (30)
where Pon and Ion represent the proportional term and the
integral term, and kP and kI refer to the proportional coefficient
and the integral coefficient of the PI regulator, respectively.
Similarly, the regulation time of the next switching-off pro-
cess (Δtoff ) can be calculate by
Ioff (k) = Ioff (k − 1)
+ kI [tAC1 (k) − tAC2 (k)] (31)
Poff (k) = kP [tAC1 (k) − tAC2 (k)] (32)
Δtoff (k + 1) = Ioff (k) + Poff (k). (33)
In order to obtain proper coefficients kP and kI , preliminary
tests without voltage balancing control are implemented by
manually adjusting the time delay between the drive signals of
the series-connected HV-IGBTs and observing the difference
between the pulse widths of the active clamping status feedback
signals during one switching process. All of the tests are
implemented with same dc-link voltage and same load current.
The preliminary test results are plotted as in Fig. 5. In the figure,
tdelay refers to the time delay between the drive signals, which
is manually adjusted from 0 to 1500 ns with the increment of
25 ns. ΔtAC represents the difference between the pulse widths
of output signals of the status feedback subcircuits, which also
reflects the difference between the conduction durations of the
active clamping circuits. Then, a quadratic equation is fitted
using the average data of the two curves in Fig. 5 as
tdelay = a(ΔtAC )2 + b(ΔtAC ) + c. (34)
LU et al.: ACTIVE CLAMPING CIRCUIT WITH STATUS FEEDBACK FOR SERIES-CONNECTED HV-IGBTs
Fig. 5. Preliminary test results for the coefficient design of the voltage
balancing control strategy.
The main function of proportionality coefficient kP of the
PI regulator is accelerating the voltage balancing regulation.
Therefore, kP can be designed to be equal to the coefficient
a in (34). The design target of the integral coefficient kI is
guaranteeing the precision of the voltage balancing control.
Accordingly, in order to avoid overshoot and oscillation of the
regulation, kI is designed to be a little lower than the coefficient
b in (34). Taking the test data in Fig. 5 for example, through
curve fitting, coefficients a, b, and c in (34) are calculated as
about 0, 1.09, and 0, respectively. Thus, the coefficients of the
PI regulator are designed as kP = 0 and kI = 1. kP and kI
could be fine adjusted according to the experimental results
with voltage balancing control ulteriorly.
Using this voltage balancing control strategy, which adjusts
the time delay between drive signals of the series-connected
HV-IGBTs based on the proposed active clamping circuit with
status feedback, voltage balance of the two HV-IGBTs (T1 and
T2) is expected to be achieved within several switching periods.
After that, the series connection circuit operates in the balanced
condition without long time conduction and frequent actions of
the active clamping circuits.
The proposed active clamping circuit with status feedback
and the voltage balancing control strategy is probable to be
extended for the series connection circuit with three or more
HV-IGBTs. In this case, the proposed method is applied to
every two adjacent HV-IGBTs. The number of the series-
connected HV-IGBTs is assumed to be N . The switching-on
time and switching-off time of T1 remain unchanged. After
every switching process, the regulation time of the delay be-
tween the drive signals of T1 and T2 is calculated through
(28)–(30) for switching on or through (31)–(33) for switching
off according to the active clamping conduction durations tAC1
and tAC2 and then implemented by adjusting the switching time
of T2 in the next switching process for the voltage balancing of
T1 and T2. The regulation time of the delay between the drive
signals of T2 and T3 is calculated according to tAC2 and tAC3
and then implemented by adjusting the switching time of T3 in
the next switching process for the voltage balancing of T2 and
T3 while considering the switching time adjustment of T2 for
the voltage balancing of T1 and T2. By analogy, the regulation
time of the delay between the drive signals of Tk and T(k + 1)
(2 ≤ k ≤ N − 1) is calculated according to the active clamping
3585
conduction durations tACk and tAC(k+1) and then implemented
by adjusting the switching time of T(k + 1) in the next switch-
ing process for the voltage balancing of Tk and T(k + 1), while
considering the switching time adjustment of Tk for the voltage
balancing of T(k − 1) and Tk. Adopting this voltage balancing
control strategy for multiple series-connected HV-IGBTs, the
collector-emitter voltages of all of the HV-IGBTs in the series
connection circuit (T1 to TN ) are expected to be balanced
within several switching periods. Based on the feature of the
principle, this strategy is named as chained voltage balancing
control, which will be implemented and verified in the future.
V. T EST P LATFORM AND E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
The proposed active clamping circuit with status feedback
is implemented and applied in an HV-IGBT series connection
experimental platform. The schematic of the platform is shown
in Fig. 6. The experimental platform is a bridge-arm composed
of four modules. Each module includes an Infineon’s 6500-V/
600-A HV-IGBT (FZ600R65KF1) [26], a passive snubber cir-
cuit, static voltage balancing resistors, a drive circuit, and an
active clamping circuit with status feedback. The active clamp-
ing circuit is connected with the drive circuit of HV-IGBT. The
platform also contains a rectifier, charging resistors, dc-link ca-
pacitors, and discharging resistors. A field-programmable-gate-
array-based control board is designed for the implementation
of the proposed voltage balancing control strategy mentioned
above. Some photographs of the experimental platform are
shown in Fig. 7.
In the experiments, the platform operates as a Buck converter.
A 7-mH inductor, as the load of the converter, is connected
between the neutral point of the bridge-arm and the negative
dc bus. The upper two series-connected HV-IGBTs (T1 and
T2) operate in switching mode in the experiments, whereas the
other two HV-IGBTs (T3 and T4) are kept in off-state. Thus,
the antiparallel diodes of T3 and T4 operate as the freewheel
diode of the Buck converter. The collector-emitter voltages,
gate voltages, collector currents, and status feedback signals
of active clamping circuits of T1 and T2 are measured for
the verification of the proposed voltage balancing method and
the comparison with the conventional active clamping circuit.
In the experiments, the dc-link voltages Vdc are set to 2 and
5 kV, whereas the load current is up to 600 A. PINTECH’s
20 000-V high-voltage differential probes (DP20K), PEM’s
1200-A Rogowski current waveform transducers (CWT6B),
and YOKOGAWA’s ScopeCorder (DL850) with high-speed
100-MS/s 12-bit isolation module (720210) are employed for
the measurements of the experimental waveforms.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the switching-off waveforms of the
series-connected HV-IGBTs (T1 and T2) with the proposed
active clamping circuit with status feedback, where VOUT
refers to the feedback signal received by the microcontroller.
Waveforms of VCE show the voltage imbalance situation on
T1 and T2. In Fig. 8, the voltage distribution on T1 and T2
has slight imbalance, whereas it is more serious in Fig. 9. It
can be seen that when serious voltage imbalance occurs, the
active clamping circuit suppresses the voltage spike effectively,
and its conduction duration is much longer than that in the
3586 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014

Fig. 6. Schematic of the HV-IGBT series connection experimental platform.

Fig. 7. Photographs of the HV-IGBT series connection experimental platform. (a) Active clamping circuit with status feedback. (b) HV-IGBT, drive circuit, and
active clamping circuit. (c) One HV-IGBT module. (d) Cabinet and load. (e) Control board.

slight-voltage-imbalance situation. The operation statuses of Fig. 10 presents the experimental results of the series-
the active clamping circuits are obtained timely and accurately connected HV-IGBTs (T1 and T2) with the conventional active
through the status feedback subcircuits. clamping circuits (without the active clamping status feedback
LU et al.: ACTIVE CLAMPING CIRCUIT WITH STATUS FEEDBACK FOR SERIES-CONNECTED HV-IGBTs 3587

Fig. 8. Switching-off waveforms with slight voltage imbalance. (a) Vdc = 2000 V. (b) Vdc = 5000 V.

Fig. 9. Switching-off waveforms with serious voltage imbalance. (a) Vdc = 2000 V. (b) Vdc = 5000 V.

and the voltage balancing control). In the experiments in
Fig. 10, the status feedback signals of the active clamping
circuits are only measured by the voltage probes as VOUT but
are not fed back to the microcontroller. Thus, the time delay
between drive signals of the series-connected HV-IGBTs keeps
unchanged. The switching-on losses and switching-off losses
of T1 and T2 are calculated as Eon and Eoff , respectively.
It can be seen that the voltage imbalance and switching loss
imbalance between T1 and T2 become more and more serious
as the collector current IC increases.
Fig. 11 shows the experimental waveforms with the active
clamping status feedback and the voltage balancing control. In
the experiments in Fig. 11, the status feedback signals of the
active clamping circuits are measured and fed back to the mi-
crocontroller. Based on the status feedback signals of the active
clamping circuits, the microcontroller adjusts the switching-
on time and switching-off time of the HV-IGBT drive signals
actively according to the proposed voltage balancing control
strategy. Therefore, the voltage imbalance and switching loss
imbalance are effectively restrained. After several switching
periods, the HV-IGBT series connection circuit achieves volt-
age balance. The active clamping circuits do not operate after
that. Hence, long time conduction and frequent actions of active
clamping circuits are avoided.
The experimental data corresponding to the last pulses in
Figs. 10 and 11 are listed in Table IV. The collector currents of
the last pulses in Figs. 10(a) and 11(a) (Vdc = 2000 V) are the
same as 330 A, whereas the collector currents of the last pulses
in Figs.10(b) and 11(b) (Vdc = 5000 V) are the same as 560 A.
The data include the difference between the collector-emitter
voltages of T1 and T2 (ΔVCE = VCE1 − VCE2 ), switching-
on losses of T1 and T2 (Eon−T1 , Eon−T2 ), total switching-
on loss (Eon−T1 + Eon−T2 ), switching-off losses of T1 and
T2 (Eoff−T1 , Eoff−T2 ), and total switching-off loss (Eoff−T1 +
Eoff−T2 ). It can be concluded from the table that compared with
the conventional active clamping circuit, the proposed voltage
balancing method not only achieves better voltage balancing
and switching loss balancing performances but also reduces
the switching loss of the HV-IGBT, which withstands higher
collector-emitter voltage, and the total switching loss of the
series connection circuit. It is consistent with the theoretical
analyses in Section II.
3588 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 50, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014
Fig. 10. Experimental waveforms without status feedback and voltage balancing control. (a) Vdc = 2000 V. (b) Vdc = 5000 V.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In order to avoid the imbalanced and high switching losses
caused by long time conduction and frequent actions of active
clamping circuits, a novel active clamping circuit with status
feedback for series-connected HV-IGBTs has been proposed.
The high-speed status feedback subcircuit was designed ac-
cording to the application requirements of the active clamp-
ing circuit. Based on the proposed active clamping circuit,
a voltage balancing control strategy, which actively regulates
the time delay between drive signals of the series-connected
HV-IGBTs, was constructed. The proposed active clamping
circuit with status feedback and the voltage balancing control
strategy were applied to a 6500-V/600-A HV-IGBT series
connection experimental platform that operated as a Buck con-
verter. Compared with the conventional active clamping circuit,
the proposed voltage balancing method achieves better voltage
balancing performances; decreases the switching loss of the
HV-IGBT, which withstands higher collector-emitter voltage;
suppresses the switching loss imbalance between the series-
connected HV-IGBTs; and reduces the total switching loss of
the series connection circuit. Adopting the active clamping
circuit with status feedback and after the regulation of the
voltage balancing control strategy, the switching-on loss and
switching-off loss of the HV-IGBT, which withstands higher
collector-emitter voltage, were reduced by 25.3% and 25.8%,
respectively, whereas the total switching-on loss and switching-
off loss of the series-connected HV-IGBTs were reduced by
3.4% and 3.0%, respectively, with 2000-V dc-link voltage and
330-A load current. With 5000-V dc-link voltage and 560-A
load current, the switching-on loss and switching-off loss of the
HV-IGBT, which withstands higher collector-emitter voltage,
were reduced by 20.4% and 35.3%, respectively, whereas the
total switching-on loss and switching-off loss of the series-
connected HV-IGBTs were reduced by 4.0% and 16.2%, re-
spectively. Experimental results proved the validity and verified
the superiorities of the proposed method.
LU et al.: ACTIVE CLAMPING CIRCUIT WITH STATUS FEEDBACK FOR SERIES-CONNECTED HV-IGBTs 3589

Fig. 11. Experimental waveforms with status feedback and voltage balancing control. (a) Vdc = 2000 V. (b) Vdc = 5000 V.

TABLE IV
E XPERIMENTAL DATA

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IPEMC, Harbin, China, 2012, pp. 1502–1507. China, in 2010, where he is currently working toward
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Ting Lu (S’09–M’11) received the B.S. and Ph.D.

degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua
Liqiang Yuan (M’09) received the B.S. and Ph.D.
University, Beijing, China, in 2005 and 2010,
degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in
respectively.
1999 and 2004, respectively.
From 2010 to 2012, he was a Postdoctoral Fel-
He became an Assistant Professor in 2004 and
low with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
an Associate Professor in 2008 in the Department
Tsinghua University. Since 2012, he has been an
of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His
Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical
research interests include application techniques of
Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research in-
semiconductor devices, photovoltaic systems, and
terests include application techniques of high-power
high-power high-voltage converters.
semiconductor devices and control strategies of high-
power high-voltage converters.