GCT Technologies and their applications

Abstract

Continuous development and evermore demanding applications, have led to significant improvements in high power semiconductors devices to date. High power devices such as GTO (Gate Turn Off Thyristor), GCT (Gate Commutated Turn Off Thyristor) and HVIGBT High Voltage Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) module have been widely adopted in large capacity power electronics equipment such as electric railway, power management, power transportation and industrial fields. However, long term reliability is expected from these applications and from the viewpoint of environmental management, reduction in equipment size and improvement in efficiency are required. Until 20 years ago, the mainstream device for high power electronics was the GTO but since the late 1990s, they have been replaced with new devices such as GCTs and HVIGBTs. Here we focus on the press-pack GCT with a hermetic structure that can be expected to have a long lifetime and report on some of the applied technologies and their application.