Electric Machines and Drives

Appendix B: Power Semiconductor Devices

B.1 Introduction

Power semiconductor devices (PSDs) are the building blocks of power electronic circuits that are used in electric motor drives. Presently, power electronic circuit designers have a wide variety of semiconductor devices with markedly different characteristics at their disposal to build high-performance circuits. A comprehensive study of PSDs is obviously beyond the scope of this text and needs extensive coverage; it requires close examination of their devices’ semiconductor structure and properties, conduction and blocking capabilities, and switching characteristics, to name a few aspects. These aspects are well covered in the literature, and the interested reader is encouraged ...