OPTIMIZATION AND ADVANTAGES OF THE BIMODE INSULATED GATE TRANSISTOR

The Bi-mode Insulated Gate Transistor BIGT is a single chip reverse conducting IGBT concept, which is foreseen to replace the standard IGBT / Diode two chip approach in many high power semiconductor applications. Therefore, it is important to understand in detail the design challenges and performance trade-offs faced when optimizing the BIGT for different application requirements. In this paper, we present the main conflicting design trade-offs for achieving the overall electrical and thermal performance targets. We will demonstrate experimentally how on one hand, the BIGT provides improved design features which overcome the restrictions of the current state of the art IGBT/diode concepts, while on the other hand, a new set of tailoring parameters arise for an optimum BIGT behavior.