Compact High-Voltage Pulse Discharging Switch With IGBT Stack and Simple Gate Drive Circuit

High-voltage switches composed of semiconductor switching components generally require a series stacked configuration, owing to limitations from the device voltage rating. In this configuration, isolated and synchronized gate signals should be applied to each of the switching devices for reliable operation. In this study, a high-voltage switch composed of a series stack of 12 semiconductor switches and a simple and low-cost gate drive circuit for the series stacked switch were designed. The proposed design can be applied to a low-power solid-state pulsed power modulator (SSPPM) without needing auxiliary circuits for the synchronized and isolated gate signal, by using a gate transformer with a single high-voltage cable loop on the primary side. Furthermore, the secondary side of the gate transformer has a simple circuit composed of two Zener diodes, a resistor, and a small storage capacitor. An insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) stack with 12 switches of 1200 V and 40 A rating each and a gate drive circuit were accordingly developed and proved to operate with a maximum pulse voltage and current of 10 kV and 100 A, respectively. The high-voltage switch with the IGBT-stack-based configuration was also verified to have compact dimensions of 10 x 10 cm.