New Industry Products

TAEC Offers New IGBT-7 Series Modules

November 16, 2003 by Jeff Shepard

In an expansion of the company’s line of high-power modules, Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. (TAEC, Japan) announced a new 1,200V series of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) that provide improved performance in general inverter and motor drive applications. The new devices, designated the IGBT-7 Series, utilize a new process technology and trench structure to achieve lower saturation voltage, a wide safe operating area (SOA), higher operating frequency and higher reliability than previous solutions. The IGBT-7 Series includes nine modules with rated current levels ranging from 50A for the MG50Q2YS71 to 600A for the MG600Q1US71.

The IGBT-7 Series utilizes a new Injection Enhancement Gate Transistor (IEGT) manufacturing process for high-power metal oxide semiconductors devices that achieves the best features of conventional Gate Turn-Off (GTO) thyristors and IGBTs. The new IEGT process achieves a low saturation voltage like that of GTOs; a wide SOA, like that of an IGBT; and excellent voltage gate drive performance like that of IGBT, combined with a high operating frequency with low loss. The resulting IGBT-7 Series, using the IEGT process, overcomes the narrow SOA and large switching loss characteristic of GTOs, as well as the high saturation voltage characteristic of conventional IGBTs.

The 1,200V IGBT-7 Series also employ a new ultra-thin punch-through trench structure to achieve approximately 25% lower switching time turn-off loss than Toshiba’s earlier IGBT Plus and Thin NPT-Planar IGBT product families. Use of a new silicone nitride substrate material also reduces thermal resistance by 10%. The 50A through 300A devices feature dual-circuit configurations, and the 400A and 600A devices are offered in a single-circuit configuration. The new IGBT-7 Series is offered in four industry-standard package types, designated A through D.

Samples of the 150A MG150Q2YS71 are available now, priced at $47 in sample quantities. Samples of the other devices in the IGBT-7 Series will be available in the first or second quarter of 2004, with sample prices ranging from $22 to $84.