2020 the 3rd International Conference on Robotics, Control and Automation Engineering

Development of Switching Power Module Based on SKHI 10/17 Driver

Kai Rao
East China University of Science and Technology
Shanghai, China
e-mail: 1272782094@qq.com

Abstract—In the experimental device of nuclear fusion, DC
energy is injected into the secondary heating system by high-
voltage power supply to improve the plasma temperature.
Because the secondary heating system mostly uses klystron
and neutral beam as the load, the output of the power supply
should be meet the requirement of the load. The rising and
falling edge of the high-voltage pulse power supply is short, the
ripple is small and the stray energy storage of the system is
small. The high-voltage pulse power supply based on step
modulation technology is adopted as the main high-voltage
power supply of the secondary heating system by researching
the power supply used for the same type of load at home and
abroad. This high-voltage power supply is used by several
same switching power supplies in series, and high-voltage
output can be obtained through by adjusting the delay time
and duty cycle modulation, which has a good performance.
According to the output parameter of single power supply
100A/850V, the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT)
module of 200A/1700V made by SEMIKRON is selected as the
switch, and it is driven by the SKHI 10/17 driver. The rising
time and falling time of the IGBT and power supply can be
adjusted by adjusting the driving resistance.
response [7-9]. It consists of many identical switching power
supplies connected in series. The opening delay and duty
cycle of each module can be modulated, the high-voltage
output should be realized [10]. According to the output
parameter of a single power module is 100A/850V, the
200A/1700V IGBT made by SEMIKRON is selected as the
switch tube, and the SKHI 10/17 driver is selected to drive
the IGBT. At the same time, the driver is analyzed in detail,
and the opening and closing time can be adjusted by the
driving resistance. The output parameters of module can
meet the system requirements.
II. SWITCHING POWER MODULE STRUCTURE
The structure diagram of switching power supply module
is shown in Figure 1. It mainly consists of module controller
(including driver and optical signal receiving module),
rectifier circuit, diode, switch tube (IGBT), voltage
equalizing circuit, etc. IGBT is the key device of the power
module. The output of the SPS module is affected by the
driver.

Keywords-high voltage power supply; driver circuit;

insulated gate bipolar transistor(igbt); switching power supply
(SPS)

I. INTRODUCTION
High voltage pulse power supply is widely used in
electrostatic precipitator, gas discharge, controlled fusion
and other pulse power technology applications. The
experimental device of nuclear fusion needs secondary
heating system to heat the plasma, which can improve the
operation parameters, and do some research under high
parameter mode. The pulse energy to the secondary heating
system is provided by the main power supply. The
secondary heating systems are usually including a neutral
beam injection system and a low hybrid wave system. The
requirements for its main high- voltage pulse power supply
are high, such as short rising and falling edge of output,
small ripple and small stray energy storage [1-4]. The
response time of all kinds of high voltage power supply
based on thyristor can’t meet the requirements of fast on-off
[5-6].
The high voltage power supply based on pulse stepping
modulation technology and related circuit topology is
adopted by the investigation of related power supply abroad.
The power supply has the advantages of high power
efficiency, wide voltage adjustment range and fast dynamic
Figure 1. Structure diagram of switching power module [11].
The output waveform of the driver is directly related to
the safety of IGBT. A reasonable drive circuit should not
only be able to receive control signals and transform them
into amplifiers, but also have simple circuit structure,
convenient use, various detection functions and protection
functions. According to the electrical isolation mode, IGBT
drivers can be divided into two kinds: optocoupler and pulse
transformer. The signal transmission and circuit isolation can
be obtained by the above methods. The characteristics of
photoelectric coupling drive are that both sides with active.
The width of positive and negative blocking pulse provided
by it can be unlimited, overcurrent and short-circuit
protection under various conditions can be easily realized
by detecting the collector voltage of IGBT, and overcurrent

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signal can be sent out. As the driver of IGBT, pulse
transformer has the advantages of small size, low price and
no need of additional driving power. However, the front and
back edge of the pulse is not steep enough when the pulse is
directly driven, which affects the switching speed of IGBT.
The 18V can be provided when IGBT is turned on and -
5V can be provided when IGBT is turned off by the driving
circuit, and enough instantaneous power can be provided at
the switching moment of IGBT. The driving circuit can be
electrically isolated with the low-voltage side of control
circuit, and complete the functions of over-current protection,
over-voltage protection and temperature protection. (c) Plan sketch of SKHI 10/17

III. DRIVER INTRODUCTION
SKHI 10/17 is a kind of driver produced by German
SEMIKRON Company, which is specially used to drive
medium and high power IGBT modules. All SEMIKRON
IGBT modules can be driven by SKHI 10/17, and it is
specially used to drive 1700V IGBT modules. The default
protection function and drive function on its circuit board are
1700V IGBT modules by default. The input buffer is
compatible with CMOS/TTL level control signals, and
short- circuit protection function of monitoring and
short- circuit soft off function are included. Under-voltage
protection function and fault status sending function (high
and low level can be set by the user) are provided by internal
DC / DC power supply to drive the final level power supply
and electrical isolation. The IGBT single tube drive and
multi IGBTs parallel drive (can be achieved by adding a
certain peripheral circuit) can be achieved, and 1700V/200A
IGBT module can be driven by SKHI 10/17. The diagram,
schematic diagram and key node diagram of SKHI 10/17
are showed in Figure 2. The main functions and applications
of the driver are introduced and analyzed in detail.
Figure 2. Physical diagram, schematic diagram and plane diagram of the
driver [12].
A. Input Level Circuit
Two kinds of logic level signals can be received by the
input level circuit. In order to work normally under the
condition of bad environment, large power ratio and long
control signal transmission wire, sending high level control
signal to the driver is adopted; in the case of low power and
short control signal transmission wire, TTL level control
signal can be sent to the driver. The selection of the high and
low level of the control signal can be converted through the
position of the driver at the position of the driver, as shown
in Figure 3, welding the small area of the J1 together is the
TTL low level input signal, otherwise it is the high level
input signal.
Figure 3. Level conversion circuit.

In order to ensure that the signal is not distorted, it must

be processed when the length of the signal transmission line
exceeds 50cm (preferably not more than 1m). First of all,
high level control signal is used instead of TTL low level
control signal. Secondly, in order to reduce EMI, the
transmission line must be twisted or shielded. In the case of
shielded cable, the shield layer can be connected to one pin
of the driver, which is coupled with the ground through a 0Ω
resistance, so as to reduce the impact of EMI.
(a) Physical figure of SKHI 10/17

(b) Schematic diagram of SKHI 10/17 Figure 4. Level conversion circuit diagram.

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 In addition, because most of the signals sent out by the components, its current should be limited to 6mA. After the
control system are TTL level signals, +5V is selected as the fault signal appears, reset the fault signal by setting the reset
power supply of the digital optical fiber receiver used in our signal high (4-pin) or turning off the power supply. When the
system to transmit the control signals, but in order to reset signal is used, the high level signal can be reset only
enhance the anti-interference ability of the control signals, when its pulse width is greater than 5μs.
high-level signals are generally selected as the control
signals of the input driver, so the control signals sent to the D. DC/DC Power Module and Pulse Output Buffer
driver must be level converted. In the peripheral circuit, In the primary side of DC/DC power module, energy is
mc14504 is selected to convert +5V level to +15V level, as transmitted to the secondary side by half bridge converter
shown in Figure 4. through ferrite transformer. At the secondary side, the high
frequency signal is transformed from the primary side to a
B. Input Buffer DC level (+15V/-8V) by a set of full bridge and filter, and
The input signal can be received by the input buffer the voltage is quite stable after the voltage adjustment circuit.
circuit, and it can be amplified and sent to the pulse Because electrical isolation of the front and rear power
transformer when the reset (4-pin) signal is low. The buffer supply is provided by the power module, the main circuit is
has strong anti-interference ability and can avoid sending isolated from the control low-voltage end. And optical fiber
some spikes and harmonic signals to the secondary side of is selected to transmit the control signal, so there is no
the pulse transformer. The input signal high level and low potential isolation between the main circuit and the control
level thresholds are showed in Table I and Table II. system. The driver is put in the SPS module and the high
voltage area together. In order to avoid the ground
TABLE I. HIGH LEVEL SIGNAL THRESHOLD suspension on the low-voltage side and sparking, the two
Maximum Typical Value Minimum grounds of the DC/DC power supply are connected together
(High level) and connected with the E pole of the IGBT. After inquiring
15V 9.5V 11.0V 12.5V the manufacturer and testing, the switch speed and other
5V 1.8V 2.0V 2.4V working characteristics of the driver will not be affected by
the connection method.
TABLE II. LOW LEVEL SIGNAL THRESHOLD
The power of output buffer circuit is supplied by the
Maximum Typical Value Minimum output of DC/DC power module. Under normal operation,
(Low level) the switch control signal is sent to both ends of G and E of
15V 3.6V 4.2V 4.8V IGBT through driving resistance. In order to improve the
5V 0.50V 0.65V 0.80V switching speed of IGBT, the peak value of its output current
reaches 8A at the moment when IGBT is turned on and off.
C. Fault Latch Function and Reset Signal Sometimes, according to different IGBT switches, the drive
circuit is simply treated to obtain the opening and closing
resistances of different resistances.
E. VCE Monitoring and Soft Shutdown
The main purpose of VCE monitoring circuit is to judge
the short circuit of IGBT. The state of IGBT is monitored
by directly monitoring the conduction saturation voltage
drop of IGBT collector. Once there is a short circuit, the
control signal will stay in the buffer period and a fault
signal will be sent to the state latch link at the same time.
Figure 5. Fault signal diagram. The individual difference of IGBT makes the VCE not all
equal in short circuit. Through the curve shown in Figure 6,
The fault latch function will be triggered only when it can be found that by adjusting the RCE and CCE, the
IGBT is short circuited or the power supply voltage of the voltage of IGBT in case of short circuit can be changed to
driver is too low. In case of IGBT short circuit, a trigger achieve the purpose of correct protection. SKHI 10/17
signal will be sent to the collector by V_CE monitoring part leaves the factory with RCE=36k and CCE=470pF. The
through the pulse transformer, and the level of the fault curve is a dynamic curve VCEref=f(RCE, CCE) with exponential
signal is determined by the form of external circuit. When J3 change. It decays from 15V at the time of shutdown to
is open circuit, the output fault signal is high level; when J3 VCEstat (5VVCE10V) VCEstat, determined by RCE) at the time
is short circuit, the output fault signal is low level. If the of saturation, and the time constant τ (5s1ms) is
power supply voltage is lower than 13V and the time affected . Under normal operating conditions, must be
exceeds 0.5ms, the fault signal will also be sent to the adjusted above VCEstat. The IGBT must bear high voltage
collector. When using high-level fault signal, a pull-up when it is turned off. Only when IGBT is turned on, the VCE
resistor must be added at the collector and external power monitoring link will be activated. But after IGBT is turned
supply, as shown in Figure 5, also known as current limiting on, a certain time is need for the voltage signal of VCE to
resistor. In order to prevent excessive current from damaging reach the saturation voltage drop level because the

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establishment of load current needs a certain process. In
order to avoid the error signal generated by judgment in this
time period, a certain delay time is needed to judge whether
the short circuit is or not. Using the VCE drops to 10V as a
benchmark, the time t1 when VCEref drops to 10V must be
later than the time t2 when the actual VCE drops to 10V,
otherwise there will be an error signal sent, as shown in
curve 1 in Figure 6. The time when the VCE of IGBT drops to
10V depends on the IGBT itself and the opening resistance
of drive. The corresponding relationship between saturation
voltage drop VCEsat, minimum delay time tmin, RCE and CCE is
shown in Figure 7.
Figure 6. The relationship between, VCEref, RCE and CCE.
(a) Relationship between Tmin, RCE and CCE.
(b) Relationship between VCEstat and RCE
Figure 7. Relationship between two groups of curves.
In case of short-circuit, the peak value of short-circuit
current is about 8 times of the current value in normal
operation. If the IGBT module is shut down in a very short
time, di/dt of the circuit will certainly increase a lot, and the
voltage spike generated by the parasitic inductance will
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certainly exceed the DC voltage of the bus a lot. It is very
detrimental to the safety of IGBT. In order to avoid this
phenomenon, soft off circuit is introduced. When a short
circuit occurs, a turn-off resistor is connected in series in the
turn off circuit of IGBT to prolong the turn off time, thus
reducing the di/dt. The soft off time can be reduced by
paralleling the Rgoff−SC part of the circuit board.
IV. DEBUGGING RESULTS
The switching characteristics of IGBT are greatly
affected by the driving resistance Rg, and the opening and
closing time of IGBT can be changed by adjusting Rg. At
the same time, the opening time can be obviously changed
by adjusting Rg, while the closing time is less affected by Rg.
In addition, the possibility of DV malfunction can be
reduced by increasing Rg. Therefore, to choose a more
appropriate value between switching VCEref , RCE, CCE loss
and reliability, the driving resistance of SKM200GAL173D
is about 8.2Ω. The input control signal and converted drive
signal of SKHI10/17 are shown in Figure 8. CH2 is the
control system signal and CH3 is the drive signal. The
IGBT drive signal and waveform of VCE are shown in
Figure 8. CH1 is waveform of VCE, and voltage is 580v.
CH2 is drive waveform, turn off time is about 3μs, and turn
on time is about 1.5μs.
Figure 8. Control signal and drive signal.
Figure 9. Driving waveform and VCE waveform.
During the short-circuit protection test, all load
resistances are short circuited, and the results are shown in
Figure 9. The over-current setting is about 110A, the current
signal will overshoot to 250A, the peak value at the turn off
time is about 888V, and the turn off time is about 5μs.
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