High-Power Installations Using Semiconductor Devices, Interactions Between Semiconductors and Converters

Summary

Power electronics has found a wide variety of applications in the fields of power ge­neration, transmission and distribution, in industry and for traction drives. The speed, direction, and extent of future progress in the development and application of power electronics depend very strongly on the progress made in semiconductor tech­nology, both regarding the signal and the power semiconductors. With new turn-off thyristors, circuits with forced commutation, such as d.c. to a.c. voltage inverters, and to d.c. choppers, may be drastically simplified. Circuits with line commutation, belonging to the a.c. to d.c. voltage rectifier family, cannot be simplified in principle but the characteristics can be improved. It may be assumed that the conventional non-turn-off thyristor has a long future and it is therefore worthwhile to invest consider­able effort in its improvement.