In this topic, you study Thyristor Family (Classification of Thyristors).
Thyristor is the general name given to the family of high power switching semiconductor devices. SCR became the first member of thyristor family devices. The term ‘Thyristor’ is chosen because the characteristics of SCR are similar to those of gas-tube thyratron. Since then, many improvements have been made in the fabrication and in the design of thyristor devices. The other members of the thyristor family are:
- DIAC (Bidirectional diode thyristor)
- LASCR (Light activated SCR)
- SCS (Silicon controlled switch)
- SBS (Silicon bilateral switch)
- LASCS (Light activated SCS)
- PUT (Programmable unijunction transistor)
- TRIAC (Bidirectional triode thyristor)
- SUS (Silicon unilateral switch)
Since SCR and TRIAC are widely used in high power control circuits, they are termed as high power devices. All the above mentioned devices with the exception of TRIAC are generally called as low power devices as they are used in low power control circuits. Modern power devices which are finding wide use in power electronics field are asymmetrical thyristor(ASCRs), reverse conducting thyristor (RCT), power MOSFET, static induction thyristor (SIT) MOS-controlled thyristor (MCT) and so on.