INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS

(POWER ELECTRONICS)
Power Electronics
• Power Engineering
• Electronics Engineering

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Power Engineering
• Generation, Transmission and Distribution and utilization of electric
energy at high efficiency

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Electronics Engineering
• Distortionless production transmission and reception of data of very
low power(W, mW) without much concern on efficiency

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Power Electronics
• The era of power electronics began with the invention of SCR in 1956
at Bell Labs
• Today the power control to a load is controlled by a microcontroller or
a microprocessor.
• While doing so all the power electronic component acts as a switch. It
is either ON or OFF
• This gives the system high efficiency

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THYRISTORS
Thyristors
• Bell Labs first invented a silicon based semiconductor device called a
thyristor.
• Later, many other devices that show characteristics as thyristor were
invented.
• A few of them being TRIAC, DIAC, silicon controlled-switch, PUT, GTO,
RCT etc.
• The oldest member of this thyristor family is SCR which is the most
widely used device.

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Thyristors
• The SCR is so popular that the word thyristor has become
synonymous with SCR.
• A thyristor has characteristics similar to that of a Thyratron tube. But
from the construction point of view it is closer to a transitor. Thus the
name THYRISTOR derives from THYRatron and transISTOR

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Terminal characteristics of SCR

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Terminal characteristics of SCR
• Four layer, three junction, p-n-p-n switching device.
• Three terminals anode, cathode and gate
• Junctions J1, J2, J3
• Gate terminal usually kept near the cathode
• SCRs of voltage range 10kV and an rms current of 3000A are available

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Terminal characteristics of SCR
• Like the diode an SCR is a unidirectional device that blocks the current
flow from cathode to anode.
• Unlike the diode a thyristor also blocks current flow from anode to
cathode until it is triggered into conduction by a proper gate signal
between gate and cathode terminal.

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Static IV characteristics of SCR

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Static IV characteristics of SCR
• Va is the anode voltage across A and K
• Ia is the anode current
• SCR has three modes of operation
• Reverse blocking mode
• Forward blocking (OFF state)
• Forward conduction (ON state)

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Reverse blocking mode
• Cathode made positive with respect to anode with switch S open
• Junctions J1 J3 reverse biased and J2 forward biased.
• Only leakage current (mA) flows
• Shown as OP in the characteristics
• If reverse voltage is increased then at some critical voltage VBR an
avalanche occurs at J1 and J3 and reverse current increases rapidly.
• The large current may cause damage to SCR
• Always ensure that the reverse voltage does not go beyond VBR
• When the reverse voltage is below VBR the SCR acts as an open switch

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Forward blocking mode
• Anode is positive w.r.t Cathode, with gate circuit open
• J1, J3 forward biased, J2 reverse biased
• A small current called ‘forward leakage current’ flows
• OM represents the forward blocking mode.

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Forward conduction mode
• When anode to cathode voltage goes higher, with the gate circuit
open, the junction J2 has an avalanche breakdown at a voltage called
forward breakover voltage VBO.
• The thyristor turns ON with point M at once shifting to N and then to
a point anywhere between N and K
• NK represents the forward conduction mode

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Forward conduction mode
• A thyristor in forward blocking mode can be brought to forward
conduction by turning it on by applying
1. A positive gate pulse between gate and cathode
2. A forward breakover voltage across anode and cathode

• In forward conduction mode (NK) the voltage drop across the

thyristor will be around 1 to 2 volt depending on the rating of the
thyristor

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Static IV characteristics of SCR

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Thyristor tur on methods
1. Forward voltage triggering
2. Gate triggering
3. dv/dt triggering
4. Thermal triggering
5. Light triggering

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Forward voltage triggering
• Forward voltage applied between anode and cathode with gate circuit
open; junction J2 is reverse biased.
• Depletion region formed across J2
• As the forward voltage increases the depletion region width across J2
reduces and vanishes.
• At this moment J2 is said to have avalanche breakdown and the
voltage at which it occurs is called forward breakover voltage
• At this point the SCR changes from off state to on state, having low
voltage and high current

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Forward voltage triggering
• Since J1 and J3 are already forward biased, breakdown of J2 causes
heavy current.
• Anode current limited only by load impedance.
• Large anode current may destroy the device
• Hence state transition from off to on state by exceeding VBO is not
employed

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Forward voltage triggering
• The magnitude of forward breakover and reverse breakdown voltages
are nearly the same.
• After breakdown, J2 loses its reverse blocking capability, therefore
even if the anode voltage is reduced below VBO, the SCR continues to
conduct

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Gate triggering
• Gate triggering is simple, reliable and efficient
• Most usual method of triggering an SCR
• An SCR can be triggered at a forward voltage which is much less than
the forward breakover voltage.
• A positive gate voltage between gate and cathode is applied.
• Charges are injected into the inner p layer and voltage at which
forward breakover happens gets reduced.
• The forward voltage at which the device switches to on state depends
on the magnitude of the gate current

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Gate triggering
• Higher the gate current, lower the forward breakover voltage.
• When a gate current is applied electrons are injected into n2 region
which pass through J3 and reach p2. They are swept across J2 by the
influence of electric field.
• This leads to the reduction of width of depletion region around J2
leading to a reduction in forward breakover voltage

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Gate triggering
• For Ig=0 the breakover voltage is VBO
• For a gate current Ig2>Ig1 the
breakover voltages V2<V1
• In practice the gate current required
for the SCR to turn on is more than a
minimum value, around 20 t 200mA
• Once the SCR is turned on the J2
vanishes and no gate current is
required to keep the SCR conducting

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Gate triggering

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Gate triggering
• However if the gate current is reduced to zero before the rising anode
current attains a value called latching current the thyristor will turn
off again
• The latching current can be defined as the minimum value of the
anode current which it must attain during turn on process to
maintain conduction when gate signal is removed
• Once the thyristor is turned on, the gate control is lost. To turn it off
the (to bring the SCR to forward blocking state) the forward current
must be brought down below a value called holding current

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Gate Triggering
• Holding current may be defines as the minimum value of anode
current below which it must fall for turning off the thyristor.
• The latching current is higher than the holding current.

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𝑑𝑣
Triggering
𝑑𝑡
• With forward voltage across anode and cathode, the junctions J1, J3
are forward biased and J2 reverse biased
• With the presence of space charges across the junction, J2 acts as a
capacitor with capacitance Cj
• If forward voltage is suddenly applied, a charging current through the
junction may turn on the device
• The suddenly applied voltage Va appears almost entirely across the
junction.

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𝑑𝑣
Triggering
𝑑𝑡
• The charging current is given by
𝑑𝑄
𝑖𝑐 =
𝑑𝑡
𝑑(𝐶𝑗.𝑉𝑎)
=
𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝑉𝑎 𝑑𝐶𝑗
= 𝐶𝑗 + 𝑉𝑎
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝑉𝑎
= 𝐶𝑗
𝑑𝑡

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𝑑𝑣
Triggering
𝑑𝑡
• If the rate of rise of gate voltage is high, the current will be high
• Even if the voltage is small, the current can be high

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Thermal triggering
• Triggering the SCR by virtue of junction temperature
• During forward blocking mode most of the applied voltage appears
across reverse biased junction J2.
• This voltage, along with leakage current will raise the junction
temperature
• Increase in temperature causes depletion region width reduces,
leading to further increases in leakage current causing increase in
junction temperature
• At some high temperature the depletion region vanishes and SCR
turns on

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Light triggering
• For light triggered SCR a recess(niche) is made in the inner p-layer
• When this recess is irradiated, free charge carriers are generated just
like when the gate signal is applied between gate and cathode
• The pulse of light of appropriate wavelength is guided by optical
fibbers for irradiation
• Such thyristors are called Light activated SCR (LASCR)

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Two transistor analogy

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Two transistor analogy

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Two transistor analogy

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Main features of firing circuits

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Main features of firing circuits
• If power circuit has more than on e SCR the firing circuit must
produce gating pulse for each of the SCR at the desired instant for
proper operation
• These pulses must be periodic in nature and the sequence of
operation must correspond with the type of thyristorised power
controller.
• The control signal generated by the control circuit may not be able to
turn on the SCR. Thus it is common to feed the control signal to a
driver circuit and then to gate-cathode circuit.

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R Triggering

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R Triggering
• Simplest and most economical
• Limited firing angle between 0-90degrees
• R is the stabilising resistance
• R2 is variable resistance
• The R2 value determines the gate voltage amplitude
• R1 and R2 are large, the gate circuit draws a small current.
• Diode D allows current conduction during positive half cycle only
• Thus, gate voltage vg will be half wave dc pulse

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R Triggering

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R Triggering

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R Triggering

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R Triggering

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RC Triggering

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RC Triggering
• RC half wave trigger circuit
• By varying the resistance R the firing angle can be varied from 0-180°
• During negative half cycle the capacitor C charges through D2 with
the lower plate positive to the voltage Vm at ωt=-90°
• After ωt=-90° source voltage vs decreases from Vm ωt=-90° to 0 at
ωt=0°
• During this period the capacitor voltage may fall from Vm to some
value –oa at ωt=0°

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RC Triggering

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RC Triggering

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UJT

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UJT

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UJT

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UJT

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UJT

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COMMUTATION TECHNIQUES

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Commutation Techniques
• Class A: Load Commutation
• Class B: Resonant-Pulse Commutation
• Class C: Complementary Commutation
• Class D: Impulse Commutation
• Class E: External pulse Commutation
• Class F: Line Commutation

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Load Commutation
(Class A Commutation)

• Commutating components L and C are connected as resonant circuit

• For high value of load resistance, C is connected across R
• For low value of load resistance C is connected in series.
• Overall circuit must be underdamped.
• The current first rises to maximum and then falls, after zero crossing it
tends to reverse.
• Class-A commutation is prevalent in circuits that are energised from a
dc source.

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Load Commutation
(Class A Commutation)

• The nature of the circuit must be such that when energised from a dc
source, the current must have a natural tendency to decay to zero for
the load commutation to occur in a thyristor circuit.
• Load commutation is not possible in dc circuits and not in ac circuits.
• Also called resonant commutation or self-commutation.

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Load Commutation
(Class A Commutation)

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)
• Source voltage Vs charges the capacitor C to voltage Vs with left hand
plate positive.
• Main thyristor T1 and auxiliary thyristor TA are off.
• When T1 turned on at t=0, a constant current I0 is established in the
load circuit.
• We assume load current to be constant(for simplicity)

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)
-> Till t1, vc=Vs ic=0, i0=I0,
-> To initiate the commutation of main thyristor T1 the auxiliary
thyristor TA is turned on at t=t1
-> With TA on, a resonant current ic starts flowing from C through TA, L
and back to C
-> This resonant current with time measured from t1 is given by

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)
-> Minus sign shows the reverse direction of current with respect to the
assigned direction
-> Capacitor voltage,

-> where

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)
Giving
-> After half a cycle of ic from instant t1; ic=0,vc=-Vs and iT1=I0
-> After π radians from instant t1 i.e just after instant t2 as ic tends to
reverse TA is turned off at t2.
-> With vc=-Vs right hand plate has positive polarity.
-> Resonant current ic now builds up through C,L,D and T1.
-> As this current ic grows opposite to forward thyristor current of T1,
net forward current of T1 iT1=I0-ic begins to decrease.

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
(Class B Commutation)
-> Finally when ic in the revered direction attains the value I0 forward
current in T1 is reduced to zero.
-> After T1 is turned off at t3, constant current I0 flows from Vs to load
through C,L and D.
-> Capacitor begins charging linearly from –Vab to zero at t4 and then to
Vs at t5. As a result at instant t5, when vc=Vs, load current i0=ic=I0
reduces to zero

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Resonant Pulse Commutation
Class B Commutation

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GWPTC, KAYAMKULAM 67
Complementary Commutation
Class C Commutation

• In this type of commutation a thyristor carrying current is commuted

by transferring its load current to another incoming thyristor.
• Capacitor is supposed to be initially relaxed. When 𝑇2 is turned on at
𝑣𝑠 𝑣𝑠
t=0 current through 𝑅1 is 𝑖1 = and through 𝑅2 is 𝑖c =
𝑅1 𝑅2
• The initial current 𝑖 𝑇1 = 𝑖1 +𝑖𝑐
1 1
= 𝑣𝑠 +
𝑅1 𝑅2
• Capacitor starts charging from 𝑣𝑐 = 0

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Complementary Commutation
Class C Commutation

• Charging current through 𝑉𝑠 , 𝐶, 𝑅2 is

−𝑡
𝑉𝑠
𝑖𝐶 𝑡 = e 𝑅2 𝐶
𝑅2

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Complementary Commutation
Class C Commutation

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Complementary Commutation
Class C Commutation

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GWPTC, KAYAMKULAM 72
Impulse Commutation
Class D Commutation

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Impulse Commutation
Class D Commutation

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GWPTC, KAYAMKULAM 75
External Pulse Commutation
Class E Commutation

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Line Commutation
Class F Commutation

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