EPEG 318

Power Electronics
By-Parash Acharya
Lecture IV
Date: 29/3/2015

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 LAST LECTURE
 Free wheeling Diode
 Problems on Diode with an LC, RL, RC and RLC circuits

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 TODAY’S LECTURE OUTLINES
 Thyristor Introduction and operational Characteristics
 Thyristor Turn on/Off mechanism
 Two Transistor Analogy of a Thyristor
 Problems

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 THYRISTOR INTRODUCTION
 Bistable switch (conducting when their gate receives a
current trigger, and continue to conduct while they are
forward biased i.e. while the voltage across the device is
not reversed) operating from non-conducting state to
conducting state.
 Has four or more layers and three or more junctions.

Figure 1: Thyristor symbol and thyristor with four layers and three
junctions
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 THYRISTOR OPERATION
 Has three external terminals namely Anode (A), Cathode
(K) and Gate (G).
 Anode and cathode are connected to the main power
circuit.
 Gate terminal carries a low level gate current in the
direction gate to cathode (also known as cathode gate).

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 THYRISTOR OPERATION
(CONTD..)
Forward Blocking State
 When anode voltage is made positive w.r.t cathode, the
junction j1 and j3 are forward biased while junction j2 is
reversed biased and hence only small amount of leakage
current flows from anode to cathode. This state is known
as forward blocking state or off state condition and the
leakage current is called off-state current ID
 If anode-to-cathode voltage VAK is made sufficiently large
the reversed biased junction J2 breaks and this is known as
avalanche breakdown and the corresponding voltage is
known as forward breakdown voltage VFBD (see in Figure
2)

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 THYRISTOR OPERATION
(CONTD..)
Reverse Blocking State
 When the cathode layer is made positive w.r.t. anode, the
middle junction (J2) becomes forward biased, while other
two junctions J1 and J3 becomes reversed biased.
 Junctions J1 and J3 do not allow any current to flow and
only small amount of leakage current may flow which is
insufficient to conduct the device.
 This state is known as reverse blocking state, VRBD (see in
Figure 2)

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THYRISTOR OPERATION
(CONTD..)
Forward Conduction State
 In this state, the voltage across the device drops from
several hundred volts to 1-2 volt depending upon the
rating of the device.
 In forward conduction state, the magnitude of the anode
current is determined by the external load impedance.
 When a gate signal is applied, the thyristor turns on before
VFBD is reached.
 The forward voltage at which the device switches to on
state depends upon the magnitude of the gate current
 Higher the gate current, lower is the forward break over
voltage.

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 THYRISTOR TURN ON/OFF
MECHANISM
 In Figure 2 below, it can be seen that for IG=0, the forward
breakover voltage is VFBD which is reduced as the gate
current is increased. Here, IG2>IG1>IG0
 In practice, the magnitude of the gate current is more
than the minimum gate current required to turn on the
thyristor (typically, the magnitude of gate current is 20 to
200 mA).
 Once the thyristor is conducting, a forward current which
is greater than the minimum value called the latching
current (IL), the gate signal is no longer required to
maintain the device in its on state.

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 THYRISTOR TURN ON/OFF
MECHANISM (CONTD..)
 Thyristor will return to its original blocking state if the
anode current falls below a low level called the holding
current (IH)
 The latching current is associated with the turn on
process while the holding current with turn off process.
 The holding current is usually lower than but very close to
the latching current.

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THYRISTOR TURN ON/OFF
MECHANISM (CONTD..)

Figure 2: VI characteristics of a thyristor

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 THYRISTOR TURN ON/OFF MECHANISM
(CONTD..)
 Example 1: The latching current of a thyristor circuit
(which consists of RL load of 20 Ω and 0.5 H and dc voltage
source of 100 V) is 50 mA. The duration of a firing pulse is
50 μs. Will the thyristor get fired?

Reference: Power Electronics-M.D. Singh and K.B. Khanchandani (2nd

Edition) page no. 21

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 THYRISTOR TURN ON/OFF MECHANISM
(CONTD..)
 Example 2: If the latching current in the thyristor circuit
(which consists of L load of 0.1 H and dc source of 100 V)
is 4 mA. Obtain the minimum width of the gating pulse
required to properly turn on the thyristor.

Reference: Power Electronics-M.D. Singh and K.B. Khanchandani (2nd

Edition) page no. 22

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 TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY
 Considered as NPN and PNP transistor.
 Collector of one transistor is attached to the base of the
other and vice-versa.
 Obtained by splitting the two middle layers of the SCR into
two separate parts.

Figure 3: Two Transistor analogy of SCR

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)
 From Figure 3, it can be observed that the collector
current of transistor Q1 becomes the base current of
transistor Q2 and vice-versa i.e.

.............. (1)

 Also, From Figure 3,

.............. (2)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)
 From the transistor analysis, following relation can be
derived
.............. (3)

.............. (4)

 Where, Ico1 is reverse leakage current of the reverse biased

junction when the other two layers are not present.
 Substituting equation (4) in equation (3) and arranging the
equation yields,
.............. (5)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)
 From Figure 1 it is clear that the anode current of the
device becomes the emitter current of transistor Q1 that is
.............. (6)
 Putting the value of Ie1 from equation (6) to equation (5)
yields

.............. (7)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)

 Similarly, from Figure 1 it can be observed that the

cathode current of the thyristor is also the emitter
current of transistor Q2 i.e.

.............. (8)

 The collector current of Q2 is given as in terms of the

emitter current and reverse leakage current as

.............. (9)

 Putting the value of the emitter current from equation (8)

in equation (9) yields,
.............. (10)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)
 As we know that
.............. (11)

 Putting the values of IB1 and IC2 from equations (7) and (10)
respectively in equation (11).
.............. (12)

 Putting the value of IK from equation (2) in equation (12)

gives
.............. (13)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)

 Rearranging equation (13) gives the value of IA as below.

.............. (14)

 In equation (14), assuming leakage currents are negligibly

small than equation (14) can be reduced to

.............. (15)

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TWO TRANSISTOR ANALOGY (CONTD..)
Conclusion [from equation (15)]
 If (α1+ α2)=1, the value of the anode current (IA) becomes
infinite which means the device suddenly latches into
conduction (ON) state from non conduction (OFF) state.
This characteristics of the device is known as its
regenerative action.
 If the gate current (IG) is of such a value that α1+ α2
approaches unity than the device will trigger.

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 REFERENCES
 Reference: Power Electronics-M.D. Singh and
K.B. Khanchandani (2nd Edition)
 Power Electronics circuit devices and
applications –Muhammad H. Rashid (3rd
Edition)

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THANK YOU

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