Numerical analysis and comparative study of short circuit stress in IGBTs devices (IR, IXYS)

In recent years, great progress in the development of new power semiconductor devices has been made and called the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT). It has been widely used in new power electronics application which are adjustable speed motor drives, appliance controls and robotics/numerical controls and was the most commercially advanced devices. The aim of this paper is to present a detailed study and to achieve an improved understanding of commercially available IGBTs of IXYS and International Rectifier subjected to extreme stress. In this paper, we will focus on the simulation of IGBTs (IR and IXYS) under short circuit situation using a design (at first, simple design where an ideal switch is used and secondly a power switch is used) which will require both understanding of underlying physical mechanisms and adequate testing procedures for IGBT. On the other hand, the influence of temperature, short circuit voltage, short circuit pulse duration tcc shows to be an important failure mechanisms. However, the relation between basic physical phenomena and the resulting short circuit response deserves more attention. Besides, our approach is an attempt to focalise the behavior study of IGBT of IR and IXYS, where we will try to understand the influence of IGBT structure on aptitude to stain the short circuit and to determine the physical destruction mechanisms.All the simulation results presented in this paper are compared with measurement other structures of IGBTs presented by Calmon [F. Calmon, Participation du comportement électrothermique des IGBTs (Transistor Bipolaire à Grille Isolée), Doctorat. Thesis, INSA Lyon, France, 1995] and identified from studies of the physical description of IGBT structure.