Experimental Study on Voltage Breakdown Characteristic of IGBT

Voltage breakdown is one of the most failure mechanisms to IGBT. High voltage can generate high electric field at PN junction of IGBT which withstands high voltage blocking. High electric field can bring avalanche phenomenon if this voltage is too high to make PN junction avalanche breakdown. Avalanche breakdown can make current rising dramatically and destroy the IGBT device lastly. This paper studies on the relation between avalanche breakdown voltage and temperature by inner physics equation, and tests the value of avalanche voltage at different temperature. As abrupt change with current at switching transient can induce a high peak voltage in power electron equipment, which may exceed the avalanche breakdown voltage, this paper also studies on how to reduce the peak voltage by adjusting resistance gate and temperature.