AN-980 IGBTs vs HEXFET Power MOSFETs For Variable Frequency Motor Drives (HEXFET is a ademnark of International Rectifier) by Ajit Dubhashi, Brian Pelly ‘Summary ‘This application note compares International Rectifier IGBTs. and HEXFET power MOSFETs for eff ‘renies as Wel a SyStem COSTS. fOr a range of 3-phase sinusoidal PWM ‘motor drives, Losses are calculated for ‘wo different cartier frequencies and the system costs. include heatsink costs. Aluminum vs, silicon tradeoff is discussed along with relevant exam: ples. Results are presented ina graph: tal format, allowing designers. 10 choose an optimum device for thei ‘motor drive application Introduction Insulated Gate Ripolar Transistors AGBTS have recently entered the field (of power electronics as serious con: tenders for power processing sockets. ‘The IGBT has shed its image as an unreliable lab curiosity and is now ‘beginning to compete seriously with established devices such asthe power MOSFET. Designers are concerned with the choices available based on complet, efficiency, and overall sys {em cost. The aim of this application ‘ole is to compare MOSFETs and IGBTS in terms of system costs and efficiencies in typical 3-phase 220V fle ontosppationsregng from one quarter horsepower to Shp. The first section compares the characensues and the structures of fntermational Rectier devies. The next section deals with the assump ‘ots made and the methods used in the comparison, The results of the ‘comparison ae then provided graph aly. Tiss fllowed by a closer lok ta couple ofspeific power ratings ‘Tais application note concludes with a chart showing te tradeoffs between Gost and efficiency across the board, indicating the “optimum” devices for each horsepower range, and a set of ‘general conclusions. Background ‘The field of phase 220V PWM motor dives has had manly biolars and power MOSFETs competing wth ne anaes, Power MOSPETe have Ue hl of pve: ees ines, especialy at power lve trio Sp boca of theese of te their raged operason. Since Fen i ei es ‘hey require only very smal gate cur rent pubes totum them of and on ‘The average currents necessary for comroling the device state are ten fis ver tan sree by bipolar devies of similar ratings. Whats more, the FETS wide swith ing safe operating, area (SOA). detonthe an dv paisa icant, ten pt vantage ove polars. The RDS Of the FET oes, however. Ne exponentially with voltage rane ‘The IGBT combines the best of both worlds. [risa voltagecontrolled device dike the MOSFET) allowing designers to greatly simplify their drive cérouils. It 9 rugged device with a ‘square switching SOA and high peak current capability. In addition, it exhibits low forward voltage charac teristics similar to bipolas, reducing the conduction lass. Also, i it des nol have an internal reverse diode, designers can choose an external fast recovery diode to suita specific appli: ‘ation. All this indicates that the IGBT will be the device of choice for applications requiring high current desties at high voltages coupled with switching frequencies up to 20 to 50 ‘Comparison of the Device Structures ‘The IGBT isa spinoff from power MOSFET technology. Both devices have similar crass sections as can be seen from Figures Ja aud 1b. Eat shares a similar gate structure with foto ete ses and wel with bs. The N type material under the wells form the drain region for the HEXFET power MOSFEL and «ts resistivity is responsible for its BV gos rating, Consequently, as the required breakdown voltage for HEXFETS ep, so does the resistivity of this region, leading (0 an exponential increase in the on-resistance of the device. The manner in which the IGBT differs from the HEXFET power MOSFET ie that it has 10 additional layers under the high resistivity N region. The firsts 2 thin N-+ region for decreasing the lifetime Figure ta, HEXFE cos secton | | [Figure 10.1687 cress seenonFigure 2. Equivalent cuit of stored charges. The second is 2 P region which responsible for the low omstate voltage drop. This P region floods the N’ region with carriers Whenever the device is :urned on and this process of conductivity modula- tion lowers the normally high resistivity of the N region. Figure 2 shows the approximate equivalent Circuit which can be used to describe the operation of the device. The structure is similar 10 a FET input Darlington with a PNP output device, As is evident from the device struc: {ut the hase region ofthe PNP is not brought out of the device and, conse quently one cannot actively get rid of the carriers in the base region to effect a fast turn-off. This s why the N+ layer is required to reduce the lifetime of carriers. It ao serves to reduce the again of the output PNP structure yc impocant to preven device lach-up. Figure 3 shows a comparison of forward. voltage characteristics of 600V-rated devices. An IGBT of the same size as that of a MOSFET would have nearly one tenth the conduction. losses. This reduced on-state drop is, however, atthe expense ofan increase in switching energy as the IGBT sisplays a distinctly slower turnoff Another feature of the IGBT is the ex SECO EER vas Figure 8. Comparison of forwars wotages —————————— Table 1 tcoTs MOSFETs 1. Minoritymajority carrier Conduction Majority Carrier Conduction 2, Low Forward Drop For similar die size, voltage rating and current High Fos(on) 8. Tumoff time 500 ns Turmeoft time <100 ns MHz ‘operation possible. 4. No internal diode Reverse internal parasitic diode 5. Mayer device ‘SHayer device SE absense of an inherent diode, whose recovery losses add to the total los, as in the case of a power MOSFET. D>signers, however, can scket a excmal reverse diode to suit the application. Table 1 summarizes the comparison between IGBTs and MOSFETs. ‘Comparison of Losses in a Three- Phase AC Drive Application For various applications the relative importance of switching loss and conduction loss can be very different. This application note compares the performance of IGBTs and MOSFETs in 3-phase motor drive applications, where a 3-phase sinusoidal waveform is constructed using a PWM tech- nique. The devices. are assumed to operate from a rectified 22DV line. Various _horsepowers from one- quarter to 5 hp are analyzed. Each hp iS evaluaied at PWM. switching ‘requencies of kHz and 20 kHz. Var- ious die sizes are evaluated at every ‘current rating to yield the most cost elfective solution. External fast recov: ry freewheeling diodes arc assumed around the IGBTs (HEXFETs already hhave a builtin reverse diode) ‘The total losses are calculated over a.cycle. These include the ennluction losses in the device, the conduction losses in the diode, the turn-on and tumoff loses due to the device, and the switching loses acsociated with the Qrr and tgp of the diode. To caleulate conduction losses over a cycle (with 2 sinusoidally varying “chopped up” current waveform a shown in Figure 4) a knee voltage + dynamic resistance type of model is assumed for all the switches. For HEXFET power MOSFETs which are purely resistive (unlike the IGBTS (or the diodes) the knee voltage is zero. As the die size goes up, the dynamic resistance decreases proportionately and thus the conduction losses decrease, ‘The turn-on and turn-off losses are assumed to be linearly dependent on ‘curtent. The losses related 10 try and ‘Qrr depend on the current in non linear way, and thus a linearization is resorted 1 for easier manipulation of the equations The resulting conduction and switching losses are converted into a bar graph format, Figures Sb thru 17b, here losses for all devices evaluated ata particular hp can be compared. The bars are divided into switching ‘and conduction losses for ease of ‘comparison. ‘The next stepis to evaluate the costs of the various solutions as itis usually the prime criterion for device selection, ‘The user costs assumed forthe devi are projected mature high volume market prices. To the device costs is added the vost of the heatsink required 10 cool the devioe to a maximum Tj of 110°C at normal full oad operating power. The heatsink cost represents a significant part ofthe total costs and, infact, can often result in a targer size of silicon being chosen to reduce the heatsink size and cost, a5 will be seen later. Mounting and Wwirng costs have not been included.Fly h ot ination it ingtoeach hp spur tgetern a mk arn fora, igure Sr Waa ala to that fr los. The ‘oss are si pint er unit dis Gets Dose ee HEREC and per Unit easiness tat the wee an appre the sgifeace of the Fea con, Th th fran peed the eo a * roves edie ith prety Of ches that can be execs. ‘A Closer Look at the 0.75 HP Example A tol of four diferent devioes as shown in Figures 7a and 7b (two HEXFETs and two IGBT® are inves tigated at each frequency. As would be expected, the total loses decrease a the devie size wes up. Obviously, increasing the slicon content implies increasing device oss, bu this can be off by decreasing heatsink cost. Ths implies that the smallest slicon sze fay not automatically be the lowest ost solution. Forexample. an IRF830 HEXFET can be tsed n'a 073 hp inverer at SU EPL bot ars shown i the chars ihe power dsipated sso are that a hugh heatsink required to feep the be temperature within design its ‘The IRFEHO HEXFET tums ot tbe {Eich more ienpensin soon, tv the added advantage of increas ing the sytem eficency. However, the IGBT Isic device turns ou fo be ven ks expensive than HEXFET power MOSFETs at 20 KH, with ren better sytem efi), ‘The picture i slightly diferent at 5 KHz as the IRF830 can handle the power loss with a relatively smaller teasnk ost which turns ut tobe the lowest cost solution though the one With che highest oss. Looking Ae IRFS4O ars, apart hat the price penalty 1 be pat for go fom § His 20 Kis le a 48, which snot very siican in terms af the overl dive cost. Crossover Point for IGBTS and HEXFETs. If the cost figures are normalized ith respect ro their horsepower rat ings andarangedasshomin gues 13 and “14, “the crossover pois peween IGBTS and MEXFETS becomes apparent. ALS kHz, IGHTS tend to be the lowest cost solution above | hp and HEXFETs are most ‘ast effective below I hp. At 20 KEL Me cusover point sis doi aid IGBTS tend to be most cost effective above 0.75 hp. This is because the TRF830, the device of choice at 5 kHz, ceangotfandle the extra svatching los 23 20 Elle and therefore, cannot be used. The nent higher di size costs ‘more than the IGBT solution, making the IGBT the most cost effective so: tion at 20 kHz. The crossover points trea function of device and host ‘rng avaiable tothe designer, nthe mediate fuure they wil probably be abit higher than 1 bp. Cost Efficiency Trade Off In most designs, cost as well ase ciency is very important. This app tation rte has atterpted to provide compete overview of the. cast eiricieney tradeott for the designer. Figures 15 and 16 present the sum: ‘mary ofthis exercise, Each set of bar raph represent two different sic Ingfrequencies. On the Xaxisare the gure 4a. Ououtvrane | afl / sovoun onspotgrs anon th ¥ 2 ae the efficercies tat can be achieved with various implementa tonsa those borsepowers, Each hp column as two su Bars Te et one Tepe the HEXFET solsuon and the right one represents the 1GBT Solution. Aa there are usually 180 or the de Sizes being evaluate, these re represented by several Horizontal efcons cd Eich rant ine ono) etl ine fsa number asocated whe which represents the normalize cost sscoced with that implementation Foreremle. i a dsipner woul Nee owes companion a device a hp naps to use 20 Hsing fre Suey, he would se that three HEX FET dieses have een evaluate, 4.3) and ewo IGBTS 2) ave eet Gialuated. The lowest cat solution ‘would be the [GBT 2 with 137 pet Unt olla cost at about 58% aft ceny, THe IGBT 2 solution 8 is expensive than the [OBT | solatonas, the Heatsink cost has booed the te eat tilting the tet owas Shon ether than sluminum, This fue even forthe FETS where the HEX‘ Sotution 241 er uni da [ns more exonomieal han HEX: ‘Foon ft 81 per unt dors Conclusions ‘There are two main conclusions resulting from this companson analy sis of insulated gate bipolar vanssors versus power MOSFETs: 1L_ For mast power conversion ap atons, there ext # radeot beeen siicon and aluminum ie..a smaller die size could be used (wath its higher losses and poorer thermal. perfor: ‘mance coupled witha bg heatsink o” ATTarger di size cou be used lead ing 10 lower loses and beter Rij) sd a smaller heatsink. The chee Gepends upon the relative costs ofthe components, and any constraints on test weet or csc te sy tem. Often tis more cst effective to ‘eae silicon rather than alumiaum. 2. IGBTs tend to be more cost effec tive than MOSFETs in motor drivel UPS applications above T hp. This study has focused on inverter consist ing of discrete components to arrive at the 1 hp erossover point. However, al the poner comnts were he packaged together nas le the erossover point could, in fact, be at a lower power because a much Smaller IGBT can do the job of a HEXFET power MOSFET: AS the cost ofa module signticanty depends nits size, an IGBT module cout be Jess expensive than # HEXFET mod ie this ding the erosover ot oven.