Improvement of Thermal Resistance by Cooling Effect of RC-IGBT Non-operative Region

Abstract

This paper describes an accurate chip thermal resistance (R_th) estimation method by the cooling effect of Reverse Conduction Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (RC-IGBT). The cooling effect achieved using the non-operational region of the RC-IGBT allows to estimation of the chip R_th when the IGBT and FWD (Free Wheel Diode) regions are by periodically on the device and used as the lead frame structure. A chip R_th estimation accuracy is improved by 15% compared with the conventional method. Additionally, the RC-IGBT has a 60% lower chip R_th compared with conventional IGBT or FWD. It is noted that the ratio of the FWD and IGBT regions of the RC-IGBT should be 0.26 : 1 enable optimization of the RC-IGBT of each R_th simultaneously.