A method for reducing the residual voltage of hybrid SPD circuit using choke coils

초크코일을 이용한 SPD 조합회로의 잔류전압 저감기법

Gas Discharge Tubes (GDTs) are widely used as surge protectors for communication applications due to their small internal capacitance. In these days, however, they are mostly used in combined configurations, because the activation voltage required to initiate the discharge process in the GDTs for sufficient amount of time can be large enough to damage surge-sensitive protected circuits. For GDTs with a considerably high initial over-voltage value, we should limit the peak voltage using a TVS or filter. As for ZnO varistors, even though their performance for voltage restriction is excellent their applications in high-frequency communication circuits have been limited because of higher internal capacitance when compared to the GDTs. In order to develop a surge protector for communication applications by taking advantages of these two devices, we built a combination circuit that connects a GDT and a ZnO varistor along with a choke coil in common and differential modes. We describe how the applied SPDs operate in protection process steps with the actual data obtained from the residual voltage measurements at each step. The experiment results show that the surge voltage restriction with the choke coil is more effective in differential mode than in common mode.