An Active Gate Driver for Iteratively Optimizing the Switching Characteristics of SiC MOSFETs

European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, pp. 1–8

Abstract

This paper presents an active gate driver for silicon carbide power MOSFETs. The driver stage is based on digitally controlled current sources with a time resolution of 2 ns. A high-speed ADC is used to sample the voltage between the kelvin source and source terminal of the power MOSFET during the switching event. Thus, current ringing of the switching transition is used as an optimization criterion for iterative optimization of the switching characteristics. The proposed active gate driver is able to reduce both current and voltage ringing significantly. It achieves a voltage overshoot reduction of up to 86% without a prolongation of the switching event and allows tracking of changing operating points.

Authors 4

1. Tobias Zekorn Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Integrated Analog Circuits and RF Systems,Aachen,Germany,D-52074

2. Kenny Vohl Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Integrated Analog Circuits and RF Systems,Aachen,Germany,D-52074

3. Ralf Wunderlich Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Integrated Analog Circuits and RF Systems,Aachen,Germany,D-52074

4. Stefan J. Heinen Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Integrated Analog Circuits and RF Systems,Aachen,Germany,D-52074