In this paper we present a highly integrated, high-temperature isolated, half-bridge power gate driver demo board, based on turnkey X-REL chipset: XTR26010 (High-Temperature Intelligent Gate Driver), XTR40010 (High-Temperature Isolated Two Channel Transceiver), XTR30010 (High-Temperature PWM Controller), and XTR2N0825 (High-Temperature 80V N-Channel Power MOSFET).
The XTR26010 is the key circuit in this chipset for power gate drive application. The XTR26010 circuit has been designed with a high focus in offering a robust, reliable and efficient solution for driving a large variety of high-temperature, high-voltage, and high-efficiency power transistors (SiC, GaN, Si) existing in the market. Furthermore, the XTR26010 circuit implements an unprecedented functionality for high-temperature drivers allowing safe operation at system level by preventing any cross-conduction between high-side and low-side switches, through isolated communication between high-side and low-side drivers.
The XTR40010 is used for isolated data communication between a microcontroller or a PWM controller with the power driver (XTR26010).
For supplying the half-bridge gate driver, a compact isolated flyback power supply has been developed thanks to the versatile voltage mode PWM controller XTR30010 and the XT2N0825 N-Channel MOSFET. The full system has been successfully tested while driving different brands of SiC MOSFETs up to Ta=200°C, 600kHz of switching frequency and 600V high-voltage bus (limited by isolation transformers used). The demo board presented can be easily modified to drive other SiC and GaN transistors available in the market. The 200°C limitation of the demo board is due to passives, PCB material, and the solder paste used. However, all X-REL active circuits have been qualified within specifications well above 230°C.
A special high-frequency soft-switched DC/DC power supply for GCT gate driver