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Devices vary in switching speed. Some diodes and thyristors are suited for
relatively slow speed and are useful for power frequency switching and control;
certain thyristors are useful at a few kilohertz. Devices such as MOSFETS and BJTs
can switch at tens of kilohertz up to a few megahertz in power applications, but
with decreasing power levels. Vacuum tube devices dominate high power (hundreds of
kilowatts) at very high frequency (hundreds or thousands of megahertz)
applications. Faster switching devices minimize energy lost in the transitions from
on to off and back but may create problems with radiated electromagnetic
interference. Gate drive (or equivalent) circuits must be designed to supply
sufficient drive current to achieve the full switching speed possible with a
device. A device without sufficient drive to switch rapidly may be destroyed by
excess heating.
Practical devices have a non-zero voltage drop and dissipate power when on, and
take some time to pass through an active region until they reach the "on" or "off"
state. These losses are a significant part of the total lost power in a converter.
Power handling and dissipation of devices is also critical factor in design. Power
electronic devices may have to dissipate tens or hundreds of watts of waste heat,
even switching as efficiently as possible between conducting and non-conducting
states. In the switching mode, the power controlled is much larger than the power
dissipated in the switch. The forward voltage drop in the conducting state
translates into heat that must be dissipated. High power semiconductors require
specialized heat sinks or active cooling systems to manage their junction
temperature; exotic semiconductors such as silicon carbide have an advantage over
straight silicon in this respect, and germanium, once the main-stay of solid-state
electronics is now little used due to its unfavorable high-temperature properties.
Voltage source inverters have practical uses in both single-phase and three-phase
applications. Single-phase VSIs utilize half-bridge and full-bridge configurations,
and are widely used for power supplies, single-phase UPSs, and elaborate high-power
topologies when used in multicell configurations. Three-phase VSIs are used in
applications that require sinusoidal voltage waveforms, such as ASDs, UPSs, and
some types of FACTS devices such as the STATCOM. They are also used in applications
where arbitrary voltages are required, as in the case of active power filters and
voltage compensators.[15]
Current source inverters are used to produce an AC output current from a DC current
supply. This type of inverter is practical for three-phase applications in which
high-quality voltage waveforms are required.
Each inverter type differs in the DC links used, and in whether or not they require
freewheeling diodes. Either can be made to operate in square-wave or pulse-width
modulation (PWM) mode, depending on its intended usage. Square-wave mode offers
simplicity, while PWM can be implemented in several different ways and produces
higher quality waveforms.[15]
Voltage Source Inverters (VSI) feed the output inverter section from an
approximately constant-voltage source.[15]
The desired quality of the current output waveform determines which modulation
technique needs to be selected for a given application. The output of a VSI is
composed of discrete values. In order to obtain a smooth current waveform, the
loads need to be inductive at the select harmonic frequencies. Without some sort of
inductive filtering between the source and load, a capacitive load will cause the
load to receive a choppy current waveform, with large and frequent current spikes.
[15]
There are three main types of VSIs: