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US 6,597,555 B2Granted
Gate driver for thyristor
AssigneeMitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHorst Gruening, Taichiro Tsuchiya, Fumio Mizohata, Kenshi Takao
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Abstract
A signal pattern is generated to produce a current for driving a 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 a reverse direction load current.
Claims12
A 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, said gate driver comprising:
- a turn-on pulse generator for generating a turn-on pulse in response to a leading edge of the on-command signal;
- a down converter for producing a down slope current immediately following the turn-on 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 relative to the A negative voltage increase of the gate voltage.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.