OPERATION OF A HIGH-FREQUENCY RESONANT INVERTER USING MOS CONTROLLED THRYRISTORS

MOS Controlled Thyristors (MCTs) are a new kind of semiconductor switch which offers promise for power conversion applications. We report on initial findings of using MCTs in a high-frequency resonant DC-DC power converter which is designed to convert several hundred volts DC to 20-30 kV. Low power (500 W) operation of this converter with both near-commercial P-type and recently developed N-type MCTs is discussed. The resonant architecture results in very low commutation losses by the switches (soft switching) offering the prospect of operating at very high power densities. The H-bridge switch efficiency exceeded 96% at a resonant/operating frequency of 30 kHz - losses per switch were about 1.6%.