17 January 2018

Advantages and disadvantages of IGBT

The term IGBT full form is Insulated Gate Bipolar Transister. IGBT has been developed by combining the best qualities of both BJT and PMOSFET. Thus IGBT process is high input impedance like PMOSFET and has low on-state power loss as in a BJT. All these merits have made it IGBT very popular among power electronics engineers. This article give the information about some advantages and disadvantages of IGBT to know more details about IGBT.

Advantages of IGBT :
  • Simple drive circuit
  • Low on-resistance
  • High voltage capacity
  • Fast switching speed
  • Easy of drive
  • Low switching loss
  • Low on stage power dissipation
  • Low gate drive requirement
  • High switching speed
  • High input impedance 
  • Voltage control device
  • Smaller snubber circuit requirement
  • It has Superior current conduction capability 
  • It is easy to turn ON and OFF
  • It has excellent forward and reverse blocking capabilities
  • Switching frequency is higher than the BJT
  • Enhanced conduction due to bipolar nature
  • IGBT has a very low on-state voltage drop due to superior on-state current density and conductivity modulation. So the cost can be reduced and a smaller chip size is possible
Disadvantages of IGBT :
  • Latching up problem
  • It can't block high reverse voltage
  • High turn off time
  • Cost is high
  • The speed of the switching is lower to a power MOSFET and higher to a BJT. So the collector current following due to the minority charge carriers root the turnoff speed to be very slow. There is a chance of latch-up due to the internal structure of the PNPN thyristor device

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