Thyristor

Circuit symbol for a thyristor

An SCR rated about 100 amperes, 1200 volts mounted on a heat sink - the two small wires are the gate trigger leads

The thyristor is a solid-state semiconductor device with four layers of alternating N and P-type material. They act as bistable switches, conducting when their gate receives a current pulse, and continue to conduct for as long as they are forward biased (that is, as long as the voltage across the device has not reversed).

Some sources define silicon controlled rectifiers and thyristors as synonymous.

Other sources define thyristors as larger set of devices with at least four layers of alternating N and P-type material, including:

• silicon controlled rectifier
• gate turn-off thyristor (GTO)
• triode ac switch (TRIAC)
• Static Induction Transistor/Thyristor (SIT/SITh)
• MOS Controlled Thyristor (MCT)
• Distributed Buffer - Gate Turn-off Thyristor (DB-GTO)
• integrated gate commutated thyristor (IGCT)
• MOS composite static induction thyristor/CSMT
• reverse conducting thyristor

Function

The thyristor is a four-layer semiconducting device, with each layer consisting of alternately N-type or P-type material, for example P-N-P-N. The main terminals, labeled anode and cathode, are across the full four layers, and the control terminal, called the gate, is attached to p-type material near to the cathode. (A variant called an SCS—Silicon Controlled Switch—brings all four layers out to terminals.) The operation of a thyristor can be understood in terms of a pair of tightly coupled Bipolar Junction Transistors, arranged to cause the self-latching action:

Thyristors have three states:

1. Reverse blocking mode — Voltage is applied in the direction that would be blocked by a diode
2. Forward blocking mode — Voltage is applied in the direction that would cause a diode to conduct, but the thyristor has not yet been triggered into conduction
3. Forward conducting mode — The thyristor has been triggered into conduction and will remain conducting until the forward current drops below a threshold value known as the "holding current"

Function of the gate terminal

The thyristor has three p-n junctions (serially named J₁, J₂, J₃ from the anode).

Layer diagram of thyristor.

When the anode is at a positive potential V_AK with respect to the cathode with no voltage applied at the gate, junctions J₁ and J₃ are forward biased, while junction J₂ is reverse biased. As J₂ is reverse biased, no conduction takes place (Off state). Now if V_AK is increased beyond the breakdown voltage V_BO of the thyristor, avalanche breakdown of J₂ takes place and the thyristor starts conducting (On state).

If a positive potential V_G is applied at the gate terminal with respect to the cathode, the breakdown of the junction J₂ occurs at a lower value of V_AK. By selecting an appropriate value of V_G, the thyristor can be switched into the on state suddenly.

It should be noted that once avalanche breakdown has occurred, the thyristor continues to conduct, irrespective of the gate voltage, until both: (a) the potential V_G is removed and (b) the current through the device (anode−cathode) is less than the holding current specified by the manufacturer. Hence V_G can be a voltage pulse, such as the voltage output from a UJT relaxation oscillator.

These gate pulses are characterized in terms of gate trigger voltage (V_GT) and gate trigger current (I_GT). Gate trigger current varies inversely with gate pulse width in such a way that it is evident that there is a minimum gate charge required to trigger the thyristor.

Switching characteristics

In a conventional thyristor, once it has been switched on by the gate terminal, the device remains latched in the on-state (i.e. does not need a continuous supply of gate current to conduct), providing the anode current has exceeded the latching current (I_L). As long as the anode remains positively biased, it cannot be switched off until the anode current falls below the holding current (I_H).

File:Thyristor char.JPG

V - I characteristics.

A thyristor can be switched off if the external circuit causes the anode to become negatively biased. In some applications this is done by switching a second thyristor to discharge a capacitor into the cathode of the first thyristor. This method is called forced commutation.

After a thyristor has been switched off by forced commutation, a finite time delay must have elapsed before the anode can be positively biased in the off-state. This minimum delay is called the circuit commutated turn off time (t_Q). Attempting to positively bias the anode within this time causes the thyristor to be self-triggered by the remaining charge carriers (holes and electrons) that have not yet recombined.

For applications with frequencies higher than the domestic AC mains supply (e.g. 50 Hz or 60 Hz), thyristors with lower values of t_Q are required. Such fast thyristors are made by diffusing into the silicon heavy metals ions such as gold or platinum which act as charge combination centres. Alternatively, fast thyristors may be made by neutron irradiation of the silicon.

History

The Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) or Thyristor proposed by William Shockley in 1950 and championed by Moll and others at Bell Labs was developed in 1956 by power engineers at General Electric (G.E.) led by Gordon Hall and commercialized by G.E.'s Frank W. "Bill" Gutzwiller.

A bank of six, 2000 A Thyristors (white pucks). The clear tubes are for cooling water.

Applications

Load voltage regulated by thyristor phase control.
Red trace: load voltage
Blue trace: trigger signal.

Thyristors are mainly used where high currents and voltages are involved, and are often used to control alternating currents, where the change of polarity of the current causes the device to automatically switch off; referred to as Zero Cross operation. The device can be said to operate synchronously as, once the device is open, it conducts current in phase with the voltage applied over its cathode to anode junction with no further gate modulation being required to replicate; the device is biased fully on. This is not to be confused with symmetrical operation, as the output is unidirectional, flowing only from cathode to anode, and so is asymmetrical in nature.

Thyristors can be used as the control elements for phase angle triggered controllers, also known as phase fired controllers.

Thyristors can also be found in power supplies for digital circuits, where they can be used as a sort of "circuit breaker" or "crowbar" to prevent a failure in the power supply from damaging downstream components. The thyristor is used in conjunction with a zener diode attached to its gate, and when the output voltage of the supply rises above the zener voltage, the thyristor conducts, shorting the power supply output to ground (and in general blowing an upstream fuse).

The first large scale application of thyristors, with associated triggering diac, in consumer products related to stabilized power supplies within color television receivers in the early 1970s. The stabilized high voltage DC supply for the receiver was obtained by moving the switching point of the thyristor device up and down the falling slope of the positive going half of the AC supply input (if the rising slope was used the output voltage would always rise towards the peak input voltage when the device was triggered and thus defeat the aim of regulation). The precise switching point was determined by the load on the output DC supply as well fluctuations on the input AC supply. They proved to be unpopular with the AC grid power supplier companies because the simultaneous switching of many television receivers, all at approximately the same time, introduced asymmetry into the supply waveform and, as a consequence injected DC back into the grid with a tendency towards saturation of transformer cores and overheating. Thyristors were largely phased out in this kind of application by the end of the decade.

Thyristors have been used for decades as lighting dimmers in television, motion pictures, and theater, where they replaced inferior technologies such as autotransformers and rheostats. They have also been used in photography as a critical part of flashes (strobes).

Snubber circuits

Because thyristors can be triggered on by a high rate of rise of off-state voltage, in many applications this is prevented by connecting a resistor-capacitor (RC) snubber circuit between the anode and cathode terminals in order to limit the dV/dt (i.e., rate of change of voltage versus time).

HVDC electricity transmission

Two of three thyristor valve stacks used for long distance transmission of power from Manitoba Hydro dams

Since modern thyristors can switch power on the scale of megawatts, thyristor valves have become the heart of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) conversion either to or from alternating current. In the realm of this and other very high power applications, both electronically switched (ETT) and light switched (LTT) thyristorsare still the primary choice. The valves are arranged in stacks usually suspended from the ceiling of a transmission building called a valve hall. Thyristors are arranged into a Graetz bridge circuit and to avoid harmonics are connected in series to form a 12 pulse converter. Each thyristor is cooled with deionized water, and the entire arrangement becomes one of multiple identical modules forming a layer in a multilayer valve stack called a quadruple valve. Three such stacks are typically hung from the ceiling of the valve building of a long distance transmission facility. .

Comparisons to other devices

The functional drawback of a thyristor is that, like a diode, it only conducts in one direction. A similar self-latching 5-layer device, called a TRIAC, is able to work in both directions. This added capability, though, also can become a shortfall. Because the TRIAC can conduct in both directions, reactive loads can cause it to fail to turn off during the zero-voltage instants of the ac power cycle. Because of this, use of TRIACs with (for example) heavily-inductive motor loads usually requires the use of a "snubber" circuit around the TRIAC to assure that it will turn off with each half-cycle of mains power. Inverse parallel SCRs can also be used in place of the triac; because each SCR in the pair has an entire half-cycle of reverse polarity applied to it, the SCRs, unlike TRIACs, are sure to turn off. The "price" to be paid for this arrangement, however, is the added complexity of two separate but essentially identical gating circuits.

An earlier gas filled tube device called a Thyratron provided a similar electronic switching capability, where a small control voltage could switch a large current. It is from a combination of "thyratron" and "transistor" that the term "thyristor" is derived.

Although thyristors are heavily used in megawatt scale rectification of AC to DC, in low and medium power (from few tens of watts to few tens of kilowatts) they have almost been replaced by other devices with superior switching characteristics like MOSFETs or IGBTs. One major problem associated with SCRs is that they are not fully controllable switches. The GTO (Gate Turn-off Thyristor) and IGCT are two related devices which address this problem. In high-frequency applications, thyristors are poor candidates due to large switching times arising from bipolar conduction. MOSFETs, on the other hand, have much faster switching capability because of their unipolar conduction (only majority carriers carry the current).

Failure modes

As well as the usual failure modes due to exceeding voltage, current or power ratings, thyristors have their own particular modes of failure, including:

• Turn on di/dt — in which the rate of rise of on-state current after triggering is higher than can be supported by the spreading speed of the active conduction area (SCRs & triacs).
• Forced commutation — in which the transient peak reverse recovery current causes such a high voltage drop in the sub-cathode region that it exceeds the reverse breakdown voltage of the gate cathode diode junction (SCRs only).

Silicon carbide thyristors

In recent years, some manufacturers have developed thyristors using Silicon carbide (SiC) as the semiconductor material. These have applications in high temperature environments, being capable of operating at temperatures up to 350 °C.

Types of thyristor

• SCR — Silicon Controlled Rectifier
• ASCR — Asymmetrical SCR
• RCT — Reverse Conducting Thyristor
• LASCR — Light Activated SCR, or LTT — Light triggered thyristor
• DIAC & SIDAC — Both forms of trigger devices
• BOD — Breakover Diode — A gateless thyristor triggered by avalanche current, used in protection applications
• TRIAC — Triode for Alternating Current — A bidirectional switching device containing two thyristor structures
• GTO — Gate Turn-Off thyristor
• IGCT — Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristor
  • MA-GTO — Modified Anode Gate Turn-Off thyristor
  • DB-GTO — Distributed Buffer Gate Turn-Off thyristor
• MCT — MOSFET Controlled Thyristor — It contains two additional FET structures for on/off control.
  • BRT — Base Resistance Controlled Thyristor
• SITh — Static Induction Thyristor, or FCTh — Field Controlled Thyristor containing a gate structure that can shut down anode current flow.

The GTO is a tri state device. with an 8-function setup. it also has an equation: v=j-o x n/n o

• LASS — Light Activated Semiconducting Switch

See also

• Thyristor tower
• Latchup

Further reading

• General Electric Corporation, SCR Manual, 6th edition, Prentice-Hall, 1979.

External links

• The Early History of the Silicon Controlled Rectifier — by Frank William Gutzwiller (of G.E.)
• THYRISTORS — from All About Circuits
• Universal thyristor driving circuit