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RESEARCH

IGBTs and monolithic IGBT/diodes with pilot current sensors, including control techniques for using them to achieve high-performance current regulation in AC motor drives

Year: 2004
Fig. 1. Illustration of basic concept for integrating pilot current sensing cells into IGBTs and diodes.
Pilot current sensors have been successfully integrated into both the IGBT as well as the accompanying anti-parallel rectifier in a monolithic device. The availability of these integrated sensors will make it possible to eliminate bulky and expensive discrete current sensors that are presently used in a wide variety of inverter applications including motor drives. Techniques have been demonstrated experimentally for delivering high-performance sinusoidal current regulation for motor drives using incomplete current feedback measurements provided by integrated pilot current sensors installed only in the low-side inverter switches. Currently, researchers are proceeding with a small number of pilot runs of these monolithic pilot sensor devices in order to extract characterization data that can be used to evaluate their readiness for commercialization.

Fig. 2. View of pilot cells in integrated IGBT/MPS rectifier device.

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