2. Thyristors and related components

The thyristor, originally designed as a controlled rectifier, was the key component in the development of power electronics in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to its bistable blocking/conducting behavior and its ability to switch high current and voltage levels (kiloampere, kilovolt range). It is still widely used today, in a variety of forms, particularly in very high-power applications (e.g. rail traction), despite growing competition from more flexible components combining unipolar and bipolar effects, such as the IGBT (Insulated-Gate-Bipolar-Transistor).