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THEORY OF OPERATION
FIGURE E.4 – SCR Operation
SCR OPERATION
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A silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) is a three terminal device used to control rather large currents to a load. An SCR acts very much like a switch. When a gate signal is applied to the SCR, it is turned ON and there is current flow from anode to cathode. In the ON state, the SCR acts like a closed switch. When the SCR is turned OFF, there is no current flow from anode to cathode; thus the device acts like an open switch. As the name suggests, the SCR is a rectifier; so it passes current only during positive half cycles of the AC supply. The positive half cycle is the portion of the sine wave in which the anode of the SCR is more pos- itive than the cathode.
When an AC supply voltage is applied to the SCR, the device spends a certain portion of the AC cycle time in the ON state and the remainder of the time in the OFF state. The amount of time spent in the ON state is controlled by the gate.
An SCR is fired by a short burst of current into the gate. This gate pulse must be more positive than the cathode voltage. Since there is a standard PN junc- tion between gate and cathode, the voltage between these terminals must be slightly greater than 0.6V. Once the SCR has fired, it is not necessary to contin- ue the flow of gate current. As long as current contin- ues to flow from anode to cathode, the SCR will remain on. When the anode to cathode current drops below a minimum value, called holding current, the SCR will shut off. This normally occurs as the AC sup- ply voltage passes through zero into the negative por- tion of the sine wave. If the SCR is turned on early in the positive half cycle, the conduction time is longer, resulting in greater SCR output. If the gate firing occurs later in the cycle, the conduction time is less, resulting in lower SCR output.
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