Driving and Protecting IGBTs in Inverters

Overview:
At the heart of an inverter is the IGBT, a costly power device which must switch extremely fast and is required to withstand the high DC bus voltage. The efficiency and reliability provided by these power devices are of utmost importance to maximize the performance of the inverter.

Optocouplers are commonly used in inverters to provide safe galvanic isolation between the control circuits and to help protect against damage caused by high voltages in the DC bus. In particular, gate drive optocouplers are widely used to drive IGBTs since they can provide high output current for precise switching and fault detection features for IGBT protection.

The ACPL-339J is the industry's first dual-output gate drive optocoupler, uniquely designed to support a MOSFET buffer to maximizes gate drive design scalability and power conversion efficiency. It also offers a compact and cost-effective solution for protecting the IGBT with integrated features like UVLO, short circuit detection and “soft” IGBT turn-off.

Attendees will learn:

-How to drive IGBT for better power conversion efficiency
-How to protect IGBT to improve system overall reliability
-The advantages ACPL-339J and achieving system design scalability, efficiency and reliability
-Who should attend: Power designers doing motor drives, industrial and renewable energy inverters, and switching power supplies

Ted Smith, Field Applications Engineer, Isolation Products, Avago Technologies

Ted Smith was born in Dayton, OH and received his Electrical Engineering degree from Ohio Univerity in 2001. He did postgraduate work at Ohio Univeristy, Hochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten in Weingarten, Germany, and the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) in Tsukuba, Japan. Ted joined the power electronics industry in 2004, working for Fuji Semiconductor, then LEM Inc, before joining Avago in 2010.

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Avago Technologies
Avago Technologies is a leading supplier of analog interface components for communications, industrial and consumer applications. By leveraging its core competencies in III-V compound and silicon semiconductor design and processing, the company provides an extensive range of analog, mixed signal and optoelectronics components and subsystems to approximately 40,000 end customers. Backed by strong customer service support, the company's products serve four diverse end markets: industrial and automotive electronics, wired infrastructure, wireless communications, and consumer and computer peripherals. Avago has a global employee presence and heritage of technical innovation dating back 40 years to its Hewlett-Packard roots. Information about Avago is available on the Web at www.avagotech.com.

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