A Study of Integrated Signal and Power Transfer for Compact Isolated SiC MOSFET Gate-Drivers

This work discusses a novel set of alternate implementations of isolated gate driver circuits for power electronic transistors. The proposed topologies for the driver have been designed specifically for SiC power MOSFET. Three different solutions are discussed, all of them providing the required gate turn-on and turn-off command signal with galvanic isolation, but also supplying power to the secondary side of the driver by means of magnetic transformers. The resulting solutions, all of them implemented with simple circuitry, enable the integration of the driver into the power cell, allowing for theoretical higher power density values in the final system. The principle of operation of the different solutions is discussed, and then the main relevant implementation details are presented. After that, the operation of the circuits is demonstrated experimentally, by testing a set of prototypes of these drivers. This provides a comprehensive design example that assesses the feasibility of the proposed solutions. Finally, the main results of the performance of the three gate drivers, on an SiC MOSFET-based prototype are presented and compared.

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A Novel Gate Drive Circuit for Suppressing Turn-on Oscillation of Non-Kelvin Packaged SiC MOSFET

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14092449 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (9) ◽

pp. 2449

Author(s):

Hongyan Zhao ◽

Jiangui Chen ◽

Yan Li ◽

Fei Lin

Keyword(s):

Thermal Conductivity ◽

Breakdown Voltage ◽

Basic Principle ◽

Double Pulse ◽

Experimental Results ◽

Switching Frequency ◽

Turn On ◽

Proof Testing ◽

Gate Driver ◽

Drive Circuit

Compared with a silicon MOSFET device, the SiC MOSFET has many benefits, such as higher breakdown voltage, faster action speed and better thermal conductivity. These advantages enable the SiC MOSFET to operate at higher switching frequencies, while, as the switching frequency increases, the turn-on loss accounts for most of the loss. This characteristic severely limits the applications of the SiC MOSFET at higher switching frequencies. Accordingly, an SRD-type drive circuit for a SiC MOSFET is proposed in this paper. The proposed SRD-type drive circuit can suppress the turn-on oscillation of a non-Kelvin packaged SiC MOSFET to ensure that the SiC MOSFET can work at a faster turn-on speed with a lower turn-on loss. In this paper, the basic principle of the proposed SRD-type drive circuit is analyzed, and a double pulse platform is established. For the purpose of proof-testing the performance of the presented SRD-type drive circuit, comparisons and experimental verifications between the traditional gate driver and the proposed SRD-type drive circuit were conducted. Our experimental results finally demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed SRD-type drive circuit.

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A Fully Integrated GaN-on-Silicon Gate Driver and GaN Switch with Temperature-compensated Fast Turn-on Technique for Improving Reliability

2021 IEEE International Solid- State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) ◽

10.1109/isscc42613.2021.9365828 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hsuan-Yu Chen ◽

Yu-Yung Kao ◽

Zhi-Qiang Zhang ◽

Cheng-Hsiang Liao ◽

Hong-Yuan Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fully Integrated ◽

Turn On ◽

Gate Driver

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Parasitic-Based Active Gate Driver Improving the Turn-On Process of 1.7 kV SiC Power MOSFET

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11052210 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 2210

Author(s):

Bartosz Lasek ◽

Przemysław Trochimiuk ◽

Rafał Kopacz ◽

Jacek Rąbkowski

Keyword(s):

Gate Voltage ◽

Drain Current ◽

Theoretical Background ◽

Dissipated Energy ◽

Feedback Signal ◽

Power Losses ◽

Turn On ◽

Speed Up ◽

Gate Driver ◽

The Right

This article discusses an active gate driver for a 1.7 kV/325 A SiC MOSFET module. The main purpose of the driver is to adjust the gate voltage in specified moments to speed up the turn-on cycle and reduce the amount of dissipated energy. Moreover, an adequate manipulation of the gate voltage is necessary as the gate current should be reduced during the rise of the drain current to avoid overshoots and oscillations. The gate voltage is switched at the right moments on the basis of the feedback signal provided from a measurement of the voltage across the parasitic source inductance of the module. This approach simplifies the circuit and provides no additional power losses in the measuring circuit. The paper contains the theoretical background and detailed description of the active gate driver design. The model of the parasitic-based active gate driver was verified using the double-pulse procedure both in Saber simulations and laboratory experiments. The active gate driver decreases the turn-on energy of a 1.7 kV/325 A SiC MOSFET by 7% comparing to a conventional gate driver (VDS = 900 V, ID = 270 A, RG = 20 Ω). Furthermore, the proposed active gate driver lowered the turn-on cycle time from 478 to 390 ns without any serious oscillations in the main circuit.

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A special high-frequency soft-switched DC/DC power supply for GCT gate driver

10.32920/ryerson.14656080.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jahangir Afsharian

Keyword(s):

Power Supply ◽

High Frequency ◽

Optimization Procedure ◽

Power Supplies ◽

Zero Voltage Switching ◽

General Power ◽

Gate Driver ◽

Isolation Transformer ◽

Experimental Use ◽

Gate Drivers

This thesis is devoted to the development of a novel parallel isolated power supply (PIPS) for the gate driver of integrated Gate Commutated Thyristors (GCT). The proposed PIPS is essentially a special high frequency soft switched DC/DC converter, integrating six parallel isolated power supplies in one module where each power supply generates a regulated dc supply for the GCT gate driver. In commercial GCT power supplies, a high-voltage isolation transformer is indispensable but highly inefficient in terms of cost and size, which can be significantly improved by the optimized transformer. In all, this design strives to achieve a general power supply for powering up the gate drivers of all types of GCT devices in all MV applications with minimal changes in configuration. In this thesis, the configuration of PIPS is presented and its operating principle is elaborated. The transformer optimization procedure satisfying the voltage isolation requirement of GCT gate drivers is extensively discussed. The performance of PIPS, including the front end DC/DC converter, zero voltage switching phase-shift full bridge (ZVS-PS-FB) converter, and the optimization of the transformer, is verified by simulations and experiments where a 360W laboratory prototype is built for the experimental use.

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