Design considerations of IGBT's in resonant converter applications

The switching dynamics of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT's) in zero voltage switching (ZVS) resonant converter applications is studied and optimized using an advanced mixed device and circuit simulator. It is shown that bipolar and MOS device parameters must be carefully optimized to obtain the lowest total power loss. A simple circuit simulation model was used in an advanced behavioral circuit simulator where the model parameters were extracted from mixed device and circuit simulations. Performance analysis of a typical series resonant converter (SRC) shows that ZVS condition is more favorable than the zero current switching (ZCS) condition from the standpoint of obtaining efficient power conversion. It is shown that IGBT's with narrower source result in lower total switching power loss.