Inverter device and air conditioner including the same

An air conditioner comprising:

• an indoor unit including a ventilation fan configured to send out cooled or warmed air into a room;
• and
• an outdoor unit including a compressor configured to compress a refrigerant, a heat exchanger configured to carry out heat exchange between the refrigerant and outdoor air, and a fan configured to send the outdoor air into the heat exchanger, wherein
• one motor or a plurality of motors among motors configured to drive the ventilation fan, the compressor, or the fan are driven to rotate by one inverter device or a plurality of inverter devices corresponding thereto;
• each of the one inverter device or the plurality of inverter devices including,
• a rectifying circuit configured to rectify an alternating-current voltage output from an alternating-current power supply into a direct-current voltage;
• a smoothing capacitor configured to smooth the direct-current voltage rectified by the rectifying circuit;
• a converting circuit configured to convert the direct-current voltage smoothed by the smoothing capacitor into a desired alternating-current voltage;
• and
• a control unit configured to control the converting circuit, wherein
• the converting circuit includes a plurality of switching circuits each including:
• a first switching element;
• and
• a second switching element connecting in parallel with the first switching element, having a conduction loss smaller than that of the first switching element and having switching speed higher than that of the first switching element, and
• the control unit includes:
• a driving unit configured to generate a plurality of driving signals for respectively driving the switching circuits to be turned on and off;
• and
• a gate circuit configured to drive each of the switching circuits based on a corresponding one of the driving signals to turn on the second switching element later than the first switching element and turn off the first switching element later than the second switching element in said each switching circuit.