SHARIF COLLEGE OF ENGINEENG &

TECHNOLOGY

Department of Electrical Engineering

Power Electronics Lab assignment (Fall’19)

SCR- Triggering methods

Syed M. Alam (UET: 42)

Lab Date Total Marks Signture

Marks Obtained
Assignment #1 23rd
Septemver
2019

Teacher Remarks:

Instructor: Ma’am Nayab

SCR Triggering (Turn-on) Methods

Triggering: -

The turning on Process of the SCR is known as Triggering. In other words, turning
the SCR from Forward-Blocking state to Forward-Conduction state is known as
Triggering.

SCR has two stable states as forward blocking and forward conduction state.
Switching the SCR from forward blocking state (OFF- state) to forward conduction
state (ON- state) is known as turning ON process of SCR . It is also called as
triggering. The criteria for triggering the SCR depends on the several variables like
supply voltage, gate current, temperature, etc. There are various methods to trigger
the SCR so that it comes into the ON state.

Figure 1: Basic SCR triggering circuit

With a voltage applied to the SCR, if the anode is made positive with respect to the
cathode, the SCR becomes forward biased. Thus, the SCR comes into the forward
blocking state. The SCR can be made to conduct or switching into conduction mode
is performed by any one of the following methods.
1. Forward voltage triggering
2. Temperature triggering
3. dv/dt triggering
4. Light triggering
5. Gate triggering
Forward Voltage Triggering

One of the commonly used SCR Turn On methods is by increasing the forward anode
to cathode voltage. By doing this, the depletion layer width is also increasing at
junction J2. This also causes to increase the minority charge carriers accelerating
voltage at junction J2. This further leads to an avalanche breakdown of the junction
J2 at a forward breakover voltage VBO.

At this stage SCR turns into conduction mode and hence a large current flow through
it with a low voltage drop across it. During the turn ON state the forward voltage
drop across the SCR is in the range of 1 to 1.5 volts and this may be increased with
the load current.

Disadvantages
In practice this method is not employed because it needs a very large anode to
cathode voltage. And also once the voltage is more than the VBO, it generates very
high currents, which may cause damage to the SCR. Therefore, most of the cases this
type of triggering is avoided.
Temperature Triggering

The reverse leakage current depends on the temperature. If the temperature is

increased to a certain value, the number of hole-pairs also increases. This causes to
increase the leakage current and further it increases the current gains of the SCR.
This starts the regenerative action inside the SCR since the (α1 + α2) value
approaches to unity (as the current gains increases).
By increasing the temperature at junction J2 causes the breakdown of the junction
and hence it conducts.

Disadvantages
This triggering occur in some circumstances particularly when it the device
temperature is more (also called false triggering). This type of triggering is
practically not employed because it causes the thermal runaway and hence the
device or SCR may be damaged.

dv/dt Triggering
In forward blocking state junctions J1 and J3 are forward biased and J2 is reverse
biased. So the junction J2 behaves as a capacitor (of two conducting plates J1 and J3
with a dielectric J2) due to the space charges in the depletion region. The charging
current of the capacitor is given as I = C dv/ dt
where dv/dt is the rate of change of applied voltage and C is the junction
capacitance.
From the above equation, if the rate of change of the applied voltage is large that
leads to increase the charging current, which is enough to increase the value of
alpha. So the SCR becomes turned ON without a gate signal.

Disadvantages:
However, this method is also practically avoided because it is a false turn ON process
and also this can produce very high voltage spikes across the SCR so there will be
considerable damage to it.

Light Triggering
An SCR turned ON by light radiation is also called as Light Activated SCR (LASCR).
This type of triggering is employed for phase controlled converters in HVDC
transmission systems. In this method, light rays with appropriate wavelength and
intensity are allowed to strike the junction J2.
These types of SCRs are consisting a niche in the inner p-layer. Therefore, when the
light struck on this niche, electron-hole pairs are generated at the junction J2 which
provides additional charge carriers at the junction leads to turn ON the SCR.

Gate Triggering
This is most common and efficient method to turn ON the SCR. When the SCR is
forward biased, a sufficient voltage at the gate terminal injects some electrons into
the junction J2. This result to increase reverse leakage current and hence the
breakdown of junction J2 even at the voltage lower than the VBO.
Depends on the size of the SCR the gate current varies from a few milli-amps to 200
milli amps or more. If the gate current applied is more, then more electrons are
injected into the junction J2 and results to come into the conduction state at much
lower applied voltage.
In gate triggering method, a positive voltage applied between the gate and the
cathode terminals. We can use three types of gate signals to turn On the SCR. Those
are DC signal, AC signal and pulse signal.

DC Gate Triggering: In this triggering, a sufficient DC voltage is applied between the

gate and cathode terminals in such a way that the gate is made positive with respect
to the cathode. The gate current drives the SCR into conduction mode. In this, a
continuous gate signal is applied at the gate and hence causes the internal power
dissipation (or more power loss).

AC Triggering: This is the most commonly used method for AC applications where
the SCR is employed for such applications as a switching device. With the proper
isolation between the power and control circuit, the SCR is triggered by the phase-
shift AC voltage derived from the main supply.

Pulse Triggering: The most popular method of triggering the SCR is the pulse
triggering. In this method, gate is supplied with single pulse or a train of pulses.
The main advantage of this method is that gate drive is discontinuous or doesn’t
need continuous pulses to turn the SCR and hence gate losses are reduced in greater
amount by applying single or periodically appearing pulses. For isolating the gate
drive from the main supply, a pulse transformer is used.