IGBT History, State-of-the-Art, and Future Prospects

Abstract

An overview on the history of the development of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as one key component in today's power electronic systems is given; the state-of-the-art device concepts are explained as well as an detailed outlook about ongoing and foreseeable development steps is shown. All these measures will result on the one hand in ongoing power density and efficiency increase as important contributors for worldwide energy saving and environmental protection efforts. On the other hand, the exciting competition of more maturing Si IGBT technology with the wide bandgap successors of GaN and SiC switches will go on.