In the recent ten years

the high voltage power device insulated gate bipolar transistor(IGBT)has rapidly developed and found wide application in the HVDC power system. In this article

the development and improvement of IGBTs' performance are described first

with the significant stages of IGBTs; development and tendency in and outside China summarized

and the improvement of performance and packages for IGBT to be used in the application of flexible HVDC are analyzed in detail. In the end

typical topologies of HVDC devices based on IGBT are provided

including examples of parameters and characteristics of the devices in the power system.