ECE 2202

Electroni Chapter 8 - Power semiconductor devices

c circuits 8.1 SCR
II 8.2 DIAC
8.3 TRIAC

8.1 The Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR)

The silicon controlled rectifier, usually referred to as an SCR, is one of the family of
semiconductors. It is similar to a diode with an additional terminal that is used to turn it on. Once
turned on, the SCR will remain on as long as current flows through it. If the current falls to zero,
the SCR behaves like an open switch. Another name for the SCR is thyristor operate at higher
voltages and currents. The silicon controlled rectifier SCR, is one of several power
semiconductor devices along with Triacs (Triode AC’s) and , Diacs (Diode AC’s) that are all
capable of acting like very fast solid state AC switches for controlling large AC voltages and
currents.
The SCR is a four-layer semiconducting device, with each layer consisting of an alternately N or
P-type material, The thyristor is a three-terminal device labelled: “Anode”, “Cathode” and
“Gate” and consisting of three PN junctions which can be switched “ON” and “OFF” at an
extremely fast rate, or it can be switched “ON” for variable lengths of time during half cycles to
deliver a selected amount of power to a load. The operation of the thyristor can be best explained
by assuming it to be made up of two transistors connected back-to-back as a pair of
complementary regenerative switches as shown.

Parts of an SCR, the two-transistor equivalent circuit, and its symbol

The two transistor equivalent circuit shows that the collector current of the NPN transistor TR 2
feeds directly into the base of the PNP transistor TR1, while the collector current of TR1 feeds
into the base of TR2. These two inter-connected transistors rely upon each other for conduction as
each transistor gets its base-emitter current from the other’s collector-emitter current. So until

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one of the transistors is given some base current nothing can happen even if an Anode-to-
Cathode voltage is present.

When the thyristors Anode terminal is negative with respect to the Cathode, the centre N-P
junction is forward biased, but the two outer P-N junctions are reversed biased and it behaves
very much like an ordinary diode. Therefore a thyristor blocks the flow of reverse current until at
some high voltage level the breakdown voltage point of the two outer junctions is exceeded and
the thyristor conducts without the application of a Gate signal.

This is an important negative characteristic of the thyristor, as Thyristors can be unintentionally

triggered into conduction by a reverse over-voltage as well as high temperature or a rapidly rising
dv/dt voltage such as a spike.

If the Anode terminal is made positive with respect to the Cathode, the two outer P-N junctions
are now forward biased but the centre N-P junction is reverse biased. Therefore forward current
is also blocked. If a positive current is injected into the base of the NPN transistor TR 2, the
resulting collector current flows in the base of transistor TR1. This in turn causes a collector
current to flow in the PNP transistor, TR1 which increases the base current of TR2 and so on.

Very rapidly the two transistors force each other to conduct to saturation as they are connected in
a regenerative feedback loop that can not stop. Once triggered into conduction, the current
flowing through the device between the Anode and the Cathode is limited only by the resistance
of the external circuit as the forward resistance of the device when conducting can be very low at
less than 1Ω so the voltage drop across it and power loss is also low.

Then we can see that a thyristor blocks current in both directions of an AC supply in its “OFF”
state and can be turned “ON” and made to act like a normal rectifying diode by the application of
a positive current to the base of transistor, TR2 which for a silicon controlled rectifier is called the
“Gate” terminal.
Thyristor I-V Characteristics Curves

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Once the thyristor has been turned “ON” and is passing current in the forward direction (anode
positive), the gate signal looses all control due to the regenerative latching action of the two
internal transistors. The application of any gate signals or pulses after regeneration is initiated
will have no effect at all because the thyristor is already conducting and fully-ON.

Unlike the transistor, the SCR can not be biased to stay within some active region along a load
line between its blocking and saturation states. The magnitude and duration of the gate “turn-on”
pulse has little effect on the operation of the device since conduction is controlled internally.
Then applying a momentary gate pulse to the device is enough to cause it to conduct and will
remain permanently “ON” even if the gate signal is completely removed. Therefore the thyristor
can also be thought of as a Bistable Latch having two stable states “OFF” or “ON”. This is
because with no gate signal applied, a silicon controlled rectifier blocks current in both directions
of an AC waveform, and once it is triggered into conduction, the regenerative latching action
means that it cannot be turned “OFF” again just by using its Gate.

So how do we turn “OFF” the thyristor? Once the thyristor has self-latched into its “ON” state
and passing a current, it can only be turned “OFF” again by either removing the supply voltage
and therefore the Anode (IA) current completely, or by reducing its Anode to Cathode current by
some external means (the opening of a switch for example) to below a value commonly called
the “minimum holding current”, IH.

The Anode current must therefore be reduced below this minimum holding level long enough for
the thyristors internally latched PN-junctions to recover their blocking state before a forward
voltage is again applied to the device without it automatically self-conducting. Obviously then
for a thyristor to conduct in the first place, its Anode current, which is also its load current, I L
must be greater than its holding current value. That is IL > IH.

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Since the thyristor has the ability to turn “OFF” whenever the Anode current is reduced below
this minimum holding value, it follows then that when used on a sinusoidal AC supply the SCR
will automatically turn itself “OFF” at some value near to the cross over point of each half cycle,
and as we now know, will remain “OFF” until the application of the next Gate trigger pulse.

Since an AC sinusoidal voltage continually reverses in polarity from positive to negative on

every half-cycle, this allows the thyristor to turn “OFF” at the 180o zero point of the positive
waveform. This effect is known as “natural commutation” and is a very important characteristic
of the silicon controlled rectifier.

Thyristors used in circuits fed from DC supplies, this natural commutation condition cannot
occur as the DC supply voltage is continuous so some other way to turn “OFF” the thyristor must
be provided at the appropriate time because once triggered it will remain conducting.

However in AC sinusoidal circuits natural commutation occurs every half cycle. Then during the
positive half cycle of an AC sinusoidal waveform, the thyristor is forward biased (anode positive)
and a can be triggered “ON” using a Gate signal or pulse. During the negative half cycle, the
Anode becomes negative while the Cathode is positive. The thyristor is reverse biased by this
voltage and cannot conduct even if a Gate signal is present.

8.2 Diac

The diac is constructed like a transistor but has no base connection allowing it to be connected
into a circuit in either polarity. Diacs are primarily used as trigger devices in phase-triggering and
variable power control applications because a diac helps provide a sharper and more instant
trigger pulse (as opposed to a steadily rising ramp voltage) which is used to turn “ON” the main
switching device.

The diac symbol and the voltage-current characteristics curves of the diac are given below.

Diac Symbol and I-V Characteristics

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We can see from the above diac I-V characteristics curves that the diac blocks the flow of current
in both directions until the applied voltage is greater than VBR, at which point breakdown of the
device occurs and the diac conducts heavily in a similar way to the zener diode passing a sudden
pulse of voltage. This VBR point is called the Diacs breakdown voltage or breakover voltage.

In an ordinary zener diode the voltage across it would remain constant as the current increased.
However, in the diac the transistor action causes the voltage to reduce as the current increases.
Once in the conducting state, the resistance of the diac falls to a very low value allowing a
relatively large value of current to flow. For most commonly available diacs their breakdown
voltage typically ranges from about ±25 to 35 volts.

This action gives the diac the characteristic of a negative resistance as shown above. As the diac
is a symmetrical device, it therefore has the same characteristic for both positive and negative
voltages and it is this negative resistance action that makes the Diac suitable as a triggering
device for SCR’s or triacs.

Diac Applications
As stated above, the diac is commonly used as a triggering device for other semiconductor
switching devices, mainly SCR’s and triacs. Triacs are widely used in applications such as lamp
dimmers and motor speed controllers and as such the diac is used in conjunction with the triac to
provide full-wave control of the AC supply as shown.

Diac AC Phase Control

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As the AC supply voltage increases at the beginning of the cycle, capacitor, C is charged through
the series combination of the fixed resistor, R1 and the potentiometer, VR1 and the voltage
across its plates increases. When the charging voltage reaches the breakover voltage of the diac
(about 30 V), the diac breaks down and the capacitor discharges through the diac, producing a
sudden pulse of current, which fires the triac into conduction. The phase angle at which the triac
is triggered can be varied using VR1, which controls the charging rate of the capacitor.

Once the triac has been fired into conduction, it is maintained in its “ON” state by the load
current flowing through it, while the voltage across the resistor–capacitor combination is limited
by the “ON” voltage of the triac and is maintained until the end of the present half-cycle of the
AC supply.

At the end of the half cycle the supply voltage falls to zero, reducing the current through the triac
below its holding current, IH turning it “OFF” and the diac stops conduction. The supply voltage
then enters its next half-cycle, the capacitor voltage again begins to rise (this time in the opposite
direction) and the cycle of firing the triac repeats over again.

8.3 The Triac

The triac is a device capable of switching on for either polarity of an applied voltage. As can be
seen in Figure below, the triac has a single gate lead and is therefore the AC equivalent of the
SCR.
A triac is essentially two SCRs connected back to back with a common gate and common
terminals
where each terminal is the anode of one SCR and the cathode of another.

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We now know that a “triac” is a 4-layer, PNPN in the positive direction and a NPNP in the
negative direction, three-terminal bidirectional device that blocks current in its “OFF” state
acting like an open-circuit switch, but unlike a conventional thyristor, the triac can conduct
current in either direction when triggered by a single gate pulse. Then a triac has four possible
triggering modes of operation as follows.
 Ι + Mode = MT2 current positive (+ve), Gate current positive (+ve)
 Ι – Mode = MT2 current positive (+ve), Gate current negative (-ve)
 ΙΙΙ + Mode = MT2 current negative (-ve), Gate current positive (+ve)
 ΙΙΙ – Mode = MT2 current negative (-ve), Gate current negative (-ve) And these four
modes in which a triac can be operated are shown using the triacs I-V characteristics
curves.

Triac I-V Characteristics Curves:

In Quadrant Ι, the triac is usually triggered into conduction by a positive gate current, labelled
above as mode Ι+. But it can also be triggered by a negative gate current, mode Ι–. Similarly, in
Quadrant ΙΙΙ, triggering with a negative gate current, –ΙG is also common, mode ΙΙΙ– along with

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mode ΙΙΙ+. Modes Ι– and ΙΙΙ+ are, however, less sensitive configurations requiring a greater gate
current to cause triggering than the more common triac triggering modes of Ι+ and ΙΙΙ–.

Also, just like silicon controlled rectifiers (SCR’s), triac’s also require a minimum holding
current IH to maintain conduction at the waveforms cross over point. Then even though the two
thyristors are combined into one single triac device, they still exhibit individual electrical
characteristics such as different breakdown voltages, holding currents and trigger voltage levels
exactly the same as we would expect from a single SCR device.

Triac Applications
The Triac is most commonly used semiconductor device for switching and power control of AC
systems as the triac can be switched “ON” by either a positive or negative Gate pulse, regardless
of the polarity of the AC supply at that time. This makes the triac ideal to control a lamp or AC
motor load with a very basic triac switching circui.

Triac Phase Control

This basic phase triggering circuit uses the triac in series with the motor across an AC sinusoidal
supply. The variable resistor, VR1 is used to control the amount of phase shift on the gate of the
triac which in turn controls the amount of voltage applied to the motor by turning it ON at
different times during the AC cycle.

The triac’s triggering voltage is derived from the VR1 – C1 combination via the Diac (The diac
is a bidirectional semiconductor device that helps provide a sharp trigger current pulse to fully
turn-ON the triac).

At the start of each cycle, C1 charges up via the variable resistor, VR1. This continues until the
voltage across C1 is sufficient to trigger the diac into conduction which in turn allows capacitor,
C1 to discharge into the gate of the triac turning it “ON”.

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Once the triac is triggered into conduction and saturates, it effectively shorts out the gate
triggering phase control circuit connected in parallel across it and the triac takes control for the
remainder of the half-cycle.

As we have seen above, the triac turns-OFF automatically at the end of the half-cycle and the
VR1 – C1 triggering process starts again on the next half cycle.

However, because the triac requires differing amounts of gate current in each switching mode of
operation, for example Ι+ and ΙΙΙ–, a triac is therefore asymmetrical meaning that it may not
trigger at the exact same point for each positive and negative half cycle.

This simple triac speed control circuit is suitable for not only AC motor speed control but for
lamp dimmers and electrical heater control and in fact is very similar to a triac light dimmer used
in many homes. However, a commercial triac dimmer should not be used as a motor speed
controller as generally triac light dimmers are intended to be used with resistive loads only such
as incandescent lamps.

SCR circuit and a triac circuit for comparison:

The diode in the SCR circuit ensures a positive trigger voltage.

Waveform comparison of SCR and Triac: at the input, gate, and output.

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