A new Robust Short-Circuit Protection Gate-Driver Circuit for IGBT with high Desaturation Current

The benefit of IGBTs with a high desaturation current is a lower VCE, sat and therefore less conduction losses. As a trade-off, the short-circuit current is significantly higher, which reduces the robustness of the device. New protection methods must ensure a fast and reliable short-circuit detection to limit the stress for the transistor and the power converter during a fault event. In this paper a new short-circuit protection is presented which limits the short-circuit current without increasing the switching losses and with a higher robustness against false detections. Measurements for short-circuit type I, II and III verify this new approach.