Design of LIGBT protection circuit for smart power integration

Development of a monolithic power integrated circuit by making the lateral insulated gate bipolar transistor (LIGBT) the main switching device is a cu rrent topic. The overcurrent protection scheme is usually necessary to be b uilt as part of the function in such a power integrated circuit, The protec tion circuit requires distinguishing various fault conditions and reacting differently based on the device safe operating area (SOA) limitation. At th e same time, the protection circuit should also be relatively concise and s uitable for integration. In this paper, a concise circuit suitable for inte gration and with gate drive capability is proposed to provide the complete function of overcurrent SOA protection for the LIGBT, The operational princ iple was described in detail and the circuit performance was verified with experimental results from both the discrete circuit and the fabricated LIGB T integrated circuit.