Product Overview

The ABB 5SHY3545L0014​ is a high-power asymmetric IGCT (Integrated Gate-Commutated Thyristor) belonging to ABB’s 5SHY HiPak series, fabricated at ABB’s Lenzburg (Switzerland) power-semiconductor facility. In ABB’s medium-voltage drive hierarchy, the “35” in the model denotes the 3500 A turn-off current rating (ITGQM), the “45” denotes the 4500 V repetitive blocking voltage (VDRM), and “L0014” is the variant suffix within the 3545 sub-family. The 5SHY3545L0014​ was introduced as the silicon upgrade over the earlier 5SHX generation that powered the larger ACS6000 (rolling-mill / mine-hoist class, 6–10+ MW): the buffer layer is thinner, turn-off loss is lower, and the gate-drive companion is more compact. In the 5SHY lineage the 5SHY3545L0014​ sits as the 3–6 kV / several-to-tens-of-MW class switch, one tier below 5SHX in peak power but with a higher optimised switching frequency (~1600 Hz nominal vs. sub-1 kHz for 5SHX), which makes it better suited to continuously-running, relatively steady-torque loads rather than hammer-type duties.Physically the 5SHY3545L0014​ is a 91 mm round ceramic press-pack, dual-side cooling surfaces, no internal bond wires—the silicon pellet is squeezed between molybdenum discs inside the ceramic hull, and the whole assembly is hydraulically clamped into the ACS5000 power-unit stack with a nominal ~35 kN mounting force. Cooling is forced water through the cold plates on both sides of the stack; the press-pack design means the device fails short-circuit under fault (rather than open), which is a deliberate IGCT philosophy—series-stacked arms in a 3-level NPC inverter can then ride through a single-device fail to a controlled shutdown rather than an uncontrolled blow. The 5SHY3545L0014​ does not operate standalone: it is triggered by a fibre-optic pulse from the control side, amplified by a dedicated gate unit—most commonly 3BHB013085R0001​ or the later GVC736BE101 (3BHE019719R0101), which converts the 850 nm fibre instruction into the ±20 V / tens-of-amperes gate pulse the IGCT demands, and returns BOD (break-over-diode) overvoltage protection and TCM (turn-on confirmation) feedback to the controller via hardware comparator, not software.ABB has discontinued the 5SHY3545L0014; the active replacement path moves toward the 5SHY 50-series (e.g. 5SHY5045L0020, 5 kV / 5000 A) on newer ACS5000/ACS6000 refreshes. But thousands of installed ACS5000 cabinets—compressor trains, boiler feed pumps, main seawater lift, marine propulsion converters, wind farm mid-voltage collection-side converters, and even HVDC Light valve legs—still BOM the 5SHY3545L0014​ by material number. For MRO buyers, the part is a high-criticality spare: when an IGCT in one phase-leg of a 3-level NPC stack drifts (increased V_T, increased turn-off tail, or a BOD trip that repeats after reset), the standard practice is to replace the full phase-leg pair (upper+lower) of 5SHY3545L0014​ rather than mix old+pulled, because IGCT V_T matching across the arm directly affects neutral-point balance in an NPC.

Technical Specifications

Main Features and Advantages

The 5SHY3545L0014​ is where ABB’s “IGCT vs IGBT” argument lives: above ~3 kV, the press-pack IGCT beats a series-string of IGBT modules on conduction loss, fault tolerance, and series-stack simplicity. The 5SHY3545L0014​ specifically benefits from three design decisions that matter on the cabinet floor.First, the press-pack, bond-wire-free construction. There are no internal solder layers or Al bond wires that can fatigue under thermal cycling—the silicon is sandwiched between molybdenum electrodes inside a ceramic hull, and the whole disc is squeezed by the hydraulic clamp through the stack’s copper busbars and cold plates. This makes the 5SHY3545L0014​ immune to the “wire lift” failures that plague high-ΔT IGBT modules in traction or mining. For marine propulsion converters (icebreaker pod drives, LNG-carrier aux) where the cabinet sees salt spray, vibration, and load steps, the 5SHY3545L0014‘s short-circuit-failure-mode (device fails short, not open) also prevents an arm from going open-circuit and hammering the DC-link with overvoltage—the NPC inverter can detect the leg fault via the gate-unit TCM/BOD and do a controlled trip.Second, the 1600 Hz switching optimisation. The earlier 5SHX generation that sits in ACS6000 (rolling mill main drive, mine hoist) is tuned for <1 kHz because those loads tolerate higher dV/dt for lower conduction loss. The 5SHY3545L0014​ trades a little V_T for faster turn-off, which lets the ACS5000 run at higher carrier without exploding losses—this is why ACS5000 ended up on compressor trains, boiler feed pumps, main seawater lifts, and wind-collection converters where motor acoustic noise and torque ripple matter more than absolute lowest conduction loss. The 5SHY3545L0014​ at 1600 Hz carrier gives a 3–6 kV induction motor a cleaner current waveform than a 5SHX-based stack would, at the cost of ~10–15 % higher switching loss—acceptable for 24×365 continuous duty.Third, the gate-unit pairing discipline. The 5SHY3545L0014​ is not a “plug in and go” plastic module—it needs the correct gate-unit variant (3BHB013085R0001 early, GVC736BE101 later) because the fibre protocol, BOD threshold, and TCM timing are matched to the silicon’s tail-current profile. Swapping a 5SHY3545L0014​ into a stack but leaving an older/newer gate-unit unmatched is the #2 cause of “new IGCT blows in 2 weeks” complaints (after incorrect clamping force). For MRO, the rule is: replace IGCT + gate-unit as a pair per phase-leg, and match all legs in the inverter.Fourth, sparing reality: discontinued. ABB’s active IGCT catalogue has moved to 5SHY 50-series (5SHY5045L0020 etc.) with 5 kV rating and tighter dv/dt control. But the 5SHY3545L0014​ ACS5000 cabinets are still 10–18 years from end-of-life in most plants. Having a phase-leg set (6 pcs 5SHY3545L0014​ + 3 gate units) on the shelf is standard for any site running ACS5000 on critical rotating equipment—because when one IGCT in the NPC arm drifts, you don’t just swap one; you swap the upper+lower pair per leg, and ideally all six if the cabinet is past mid-life.

Application Field

The 5SHY3545L0014​ lives inside ABB ACS5000 medium-voltage drives, which occupy the “single-cabinet, 3–6 kV, few-to-tens-of-MW” slot in ABB’s MV portfolio—one tier down from ACS6000 (rolling mill / mine hoist / ship propulsion 6–10+ MW) and one tier up from ACS580MV (lower power). A typical ACS5000 power unit stacks multiple 5SHY3545L0014​ discs in a 3-level NPC topology: each phase leg has an upper and lower 5SHY3545L0014, clamped between DC-link busbars and water-cold-plates, with a GVC736BE101 gate unit per disc receiving 850 nm fibre from the drive’s control cabinet. The 4500 V rating lets the NPC arm block the full DC-link (≈5–8 kV depending on topology) with margin; the 3500 A ITGQM rating sets the motor-FLA ceiling of the drive.Concrete deployments: onshore compressor stations (centrifugal gas compressors, 4–6 MW per motor, ACS5000 4.16 kV), where the 5SHY3545L0014​ runs 24×365 at partial load with infrequent speed steps—here the 1600 Hz carrier keeps the compressor surge-line control smooth. On marine: electric pod drives and thruster converters on LNG carriers and icebreakers, where the press-pack short-circuit-failure-mode is a deliberate safety choice—if one 5SHY3545L0014​ in a leg fails, the NPC can still commutate to a controlled shutdown rather than an open-arm overvoltage event that takes the DC-link with it. In HVDC Light converter valves (lower-power STATCOM / offshore wind export-side converters), the 5SHY3545L0014​ appears in valve-stack builds where the voltage rating matches the sub-module DC budget and the press-pack format suits the series string.Retrofit context: when an ACS5000 throws repeated BOD trips or the gate-unit logs “TCM timeout” on one leg, the usual root cause is a 5SHY3545L0014​ with rising on-state V_T (pellet micro-cracking from thermal cycle) or a gate-unit opto that’s drifting. Swapping just the complaining disc without refreshing its complement in the same leg leaves a V_T mismatch that unbalances the neutral point—so the field practice is upper+lower 5SHY3545L0014​ per leg as a set. For plants with two identical ACS5000 lines, keeping a full 6-disc + 3-gate spare kit per drive is common; for single-train critical assets (main seawater lift on an offshore platform), some sites even keep a full power-stack spare (all 3 legs) because the 5SHY3545L0014​ lead time on the surplus market is 3–6 weeks and a downed compressor train costs more per day.