Aiming at the problem of overvoltage pulse in IGBT of direct drive wind power generation system, a new type of Capacitor Resistor and Capacitor Diode (CR-CD) overvoltage protection circuit is proposed based on the physical model of IGBT and four kinds of C-type, clamped diode, RC-type and RCD-type overvoltage protection circuit. Firstly, the working principle of CR-CD overvoltage protection circuit is analyzed, and the excellent performance of CR-CD overvoltage protection circuit to suppress overvoltage pulse is demonstrated. Secondly, the parameters of overvoltage protection circuit are designed in detail. Finally, the simulation model of CR-CD type overvoltage protection circuit is built based on the platform of Matlab/Simulink. The simulation results are compared and analyzed under the conditions of constant and variable load inductance. The results show that the CR-CD overvoltage protection circuit can not only effectively suppress the overvoltage pulse, but also avoid the overvoltage pulse attenuation delay caused by capacitance and shorten the IGBT turn-off time. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51767024 and No. 51667020), Ministry of Education Innovation Team Rolling Support Program (No. RT-16R63) and Xinjiang University Doctoral Research Startup Fund Project (No. BS160245).