Abstract
The thyristor was the dominating switching device in power electronics for a long time. It was described already in 1956 [Mol56] and introduced to the market in the early 1960s [Gen64]. The acronym SCR (Silicon Controlled Rectifier) was primarily used for a thyristor in early publications and is still occasionally in use today. In its basic structure, a thyristor can be fabricated without very fine structures and with low-cost photolithography equipment. Thethyristor is still widely used in applications with low switching frequencies, such as controlled input rectifiers which are applied at the grid frequency of 50 or 60 Hz. A further actual application field of the thyristor is the power range that cannot be reached with other power devices – the range of very high blocking voltages and very high currents. For high-voltage DC power transmission, thyristors with 8 kV blocking voltage and more than 5.6 kA rated current have been introduced in 2008 as a single device in the size of a 6-in. wafer [Prz09].
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Notes
- 1.
Already for diodes, the term “punch through” was used, however, in a different meaning of the word. When in diodes the space charge region extends through the entire n−-layer and penetrates into an n+-layer, the blocking capability can further increase. See Section 5.3.
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Lutz, J., Schlangenotto, H., Scheuermann, U., De Doncker, R. (2010). Thyristors. In: Semiconductor Power Devices. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11125-9_8
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