Characterization of Si-IGBTs in ZCS for EV Charger Applications

This paper presents the characterization of silicon IGBT (Si-IGBTs) in a fast zero-current switching (ZCS) operation of a single-stage, 3-phase, 11 kW resonant converter for electric vehicle (EV) charging applications. ZCS prevents a long turn-off current tail in Si-IGBTs during hard switching. Thanks to the developed converter topology, a switching frequency fsw of up to 70 kHz can be reached with a ZCS resonant converter based on Si-IGBTs. Compared to the ZCS characterization data of Si-IGBTs in literature, i.e. fsw,max = 20 kHz, this paper extends the characterization of reverse-conducting (RC) Si-IGBTs for fsw = 50 − 70 kHz, supported by electrical measurements and numerical device simulations.