Hello,

What is exactly a snubber circuit?
Is it a protective circuit?
Do i require it for all the switches (IGBT/MOSFET/SCR)?
I have seen some power electronics circuits without snubbers. Iam confused.
A small electromagnetic relay is a switch. Why dont we need a snubber for that?

How can i know where to use it? And how can i calculate the component values?

Sorry for those lot of questions..

thankyou.

 

A brief intro to snubbers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snubber
More info:
http://www.cde.com/tech/design.pdf
http://ken-gilbert.com/images/pdf/snubber.pdf
http://www.tij.co.jp/jp/lit/an/slup100/slup100.pdf
Basically, you need snubbers when you have an inductive load where you are turning off the current path to an inductor rapidly.