Digital Gate Driver IC with Fully Integrated Automatic Timing Control Function in Stop-and-Go Gate Drive for IGBTs
Dibo Zhang, Kohei Horii, Katsuhiro Hata, Makoto Takamiya
Abstract
To reduce loss and noise during switching of IGBTs at low cost even under changing operating conditions, namely load current ( <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\mathrm{L}}$</tex> ) and junction temperature ( <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$T_{\mathrm{J}}$</tex> ) variation, the world's first active digital gate driver IC with fully integrated automatic timing control function that achieves both single-chip integration and real-time control is developed. In order to handle various IGBTs with one type of gate driver, the proposed IC also has the world's first 6-bit programmable gate current function in the closed-loop active gate drivers. In the double pulse test of IGBT, compared with the conventional single-step gate drive, the stop-and-go gate drive with automatic timing control using the proposed IC effectively reduces the switching loss ( <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$E_{\text{LOSS}}$</tex> ) under the collector current overshoot ( <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$</tex> ))-aligned condition and reduces <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$</tex> under <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$E_{\text{LOSS}}$</tex> -aligned condition with <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\mathrm{L}}$</tex> ranging from 10 A to 80 A and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$T_{\mathrm{J}}$</tex> ranging from 25 °C (room temperature) to 125 °C, and particularly at the condition of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\mathrm{L}}=80$</tex> A at 25 °C, the proposed gate driver reduces <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$E_{\text{LOSS}}$</tex> by 49 % under the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$</tex> -aligned condition and reduces <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$</tex> by 33 % under the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$E_{\text{LOSS}}$</tex> -aligned condition.