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US 2002/0118503 A1Published application
Gate driver for thyristor
AssigneeMitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHorst Gruening, Taichiro Tsuchiya, Fumio Mizohata, Kenshi Takao
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Abstract
A predetermined signal pattern is generated to produce current for driving the GCT thyristor. The current is produced by the use of a down converter. Also, a current limiter having an FET is used for protecting the down converter from being damaged by a negative voltage appearing at the gate of GCT when the GCT thyristor receives reverse direction load current.
Claims12
Gate driver for driving a thyristor having an anode, a cathode and a gate by providing a gate current to the gate of said thyristor during an on-command signal is present, said gate driver comprising:
- a turn-on pulse generator for generating a turn-on pulse in response to a leading edge of said on-command signal;
- a down converter for producing a down slope current immediately following said firing pulse;
- and
- a current limiter having a MOSFET connected to the gate of said thyristor for supplying current from said down converter to the gate of said thyristor, said current limiter monitoring the gate voltage at the gate of said thyristor and increasing an internal resistance of said MOSFET relatively to the negative voltage increase of said gate voltage.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.