Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) - Electrical4u

3/12/2017 Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) | Electrical4u
Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR)
« Previous Next »
Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) is a unidirectional semiconductor device made of silicon which
can be used to provide a selected power to the load by switching it ON for variable amount of time.
These devices are solidstate equivalent of thyratrons and are hence referred to as thyristors or
thyrode transistors. In fact, SCR is a trade name of General Electric (GE) to the thyristor. Basically
SCR is a three terminal, fourlayer (hence of three junctions J1, J2 and J3) semiconductor device
consisting of alternate layers of p and ntype material doping. Figure 1a shows the SCR with the
layers pnpn which has the terminals Anode (A), Cathode (K) and the Gate (G). Further it is to be noted
that the Gate terminal will generally be the player nearer to the Cathode terminal. The symbol of the
SCR used in case of circuit diagrams is shown in Figure 1b.
These SCRs can be considered equivalent to two interconnected transistors as shown by the Figure 2.
https://www.electrical4u.com/siliconcontrolledrectifier(scr)/ 1/5
Here it is seen that a single SCR is equal to a combination of pnp (Q
≡ 1 ) and npn (Q2 ) transistors where
the emitter of Q1 will act as the anode terminal of the SCR while the emitter of Q2 will be its cathode.
Further, the base of Q1 is connected to the collector of Q2 and the collector of Q1 is shorted with the
base of Q2 to result in the gate terminal of the SCR. The working of SCR can be understood by
analyzing its behaviour in the following modes:
1. Reverse Blocking Mode: In this mode, the SCR is reverse biased by connecting its Anode terminal
to negative end of the battery and by providing its Cathode terminal with a positive voltage (Figure
3a). This leads to the reverse biasing of the junctions J1 and J3, which inturn prohibits the flow of
current through the device, inspite of the fact that the junction J2 will be forward biased. Further, in
this state, the SCR behaviour will be identical to that of a typical diode as it exhibits both the flow of
reverse saturation current (green curve in Figure 4) as well as the reverse breakdown phenomenon
(black curve in Figure 4).
2. Forward Blocking Mode: Here a positive bias is applied to the SCR by connecting its Anode to the
positive of the battery and by shorting the SCR cathode to the battery's negative terminal, as shown
by Figure 3b. Under this condition, the junctions J1 and J3 gets forward biased while J2 will be
reverse biased which allows only a minute amount of current flow through the device as shown by
the blue curve in Figure 4.
3. Forward Conduction Mode: SCR can be made

≡ to conduct either (i) By Increasing the positive
voltage applied between the Anode and Cathode terminals beyond the BreakOver Voltage, VB or (ii)
By applying positive voltage at its gate terminal as shown by Figure 3c. In the first case, the
increase in the applied bias causes the initially reverse biased junction J2 to breakdown at the point
corresponding to Forward BreakOver Voltage, VB. This results in the sudden increase in the current
flowing through the SCR as shown by the pink curve in Figure 4, although the gate terminal of the
SCR remains unbiased.
However SCRs can be made to turnon at a much smaller voltage level by proving small positive
voltage between the gate and the cathode terminals (Figure 3c). The reason behind this can be better
understood by considering the transistor equivalent circuit of the SCR shown in Figure 2. Here it is
seen that on applying positive voltage at the gate terminal, transistor Q2 switches ON and its collector
current flows into the base of transistor Q1. This causes Q1 to switch ON which in turn results in the
flow of its collector current into the base of Q2. This causes either transistor to get saturated at a very
rapid rate and the action cannot be stopped even by removing the bias applied at the gate terminal,
provided the current through the SCR is greater than that of the Latching current. Here the latching
current is defined as the minimum current required to maintain the SCR in conducting state even after
the gate pulse is removed. In such state, the SCR is said to be latched and there will be no means to
limit the current through the device, unless by using an external impedance in the circuit. This
necessitates one to resort for different techniques like Natural Commutation, Forced Commutation or
Reverse Bias TurnOff and Gate TurnOff to switch OFF the SCR. Basically all of these techniques aim
at reducing the Anode Current below the Holding Current, the minimum current which is to be
maintained through the SCR to keep it in its conducting mode. Similar to turnoff techniques, there
also exist different turnon techniques for the SCR like Triggering by DC Gate Signal, Triggering by AC
Gate Signal and Triggering by Pulsed Gate Signal, ForwardVoltage Triggering, Gate Triggering, dv/dt
Triggering, Temperature Triggering and Light Triggering. There are many variations of SCR devices viz.,
Reverse Conducting Thyristor (RCT), Gate TurnOff Thyristor (GTO), Gate Assisted TurnOff Thyristor
(GATT), Asymmetric Thyristor, Static Induction Thyristors (SITH), MOS Controlled Thyristors (MCT),
Light Activated Thyristors (LASCR) etc. Normally SCRs have high switching speed and can handle
heavy current flow. This makes them ideal for many applications like
1. Power switching circuits (for both AC and DC)
2. Zerovoltage switching circuits
3. Over voltage protection circuits
4. Controlled Rectifiers
5. Inverters
6. AC Power Control (including lights, motors, etc.)
7. Pulse Circuits
8. Battery Charging Regulator
9. Latching Relays
10. Computer Logic Circuits
11. Remote Switching Units
12. Phase Angle Triggered Controllers
13. Timing Circuits
14. IC Triggering Circuits
15. Welding Machine Control
16. Temperature Control Systems
Like 7 1
« Previous Next »
Closely Related Articles
Concept of Power Electronics
≡
Application of Power Electronics
Advantages and Disadvantages of Power Electronic Converters
Thyristor Application Types Construction Principle of Thyristor
Silicon Controlled Rectifier SCR | Two Transistor Model | Operating Principle
Characteristics of Thyristor
Switching or ON OFF Characteristics of SCR | Turn ON Turn OFF Time
Thyristor Triggering
Gate Characteristics of SCR or Thyristor
Rating of SCR or Thyristor
Thyristor Protection or SCR Protection
Series and Parallel Connection of SCR or Thyristor
Chopper | DC to DC Converter
Cycloconverter
Dual Converter
Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor | IGBT
More Related Articles
New Articles
Voltage Follower
Diode Testing
Measurement of Resistance
Capacitance Meter
Voltage Source
Reverse Recovery Time of Diode
© 20112017 electrical4u.The content is copyrighted to electrical4u and may not be reproduced on other websites.

Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) - Electrical4u

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) - Electrical4u

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) - Electrical4u

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

3/12/2017 Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) | Electrical4u

3. Forward Conduction Mode: SCR can be made

You might also like