Work

Tunable Isolated Gate Driver Supply for Automated Switching Loss Measurement of Power Field Effect Transistors

Year: 2024

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: The switching losses of power Field Effect Transistors (FETs) such as Silicon IGBTs, MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs, GaN HEMTs and Diamond FETs are highly dependent on the gate driver currents. These currents are typically set by gate resistors. However, it is then difficult to change the switching speeds, especially during the characterization of switching losses, and integrate such changes in automated design of experiments. In this work, we report a simple circuit to add margining (trimming) capability to any isolated gate driver DC/DC supply, which can be changed online and controlled by a supervisor through an isolated bidirectional series communication. This technique allows 1024 different positive gate voltage levels, which can then be used for characterization of switching losses. The driving voltages can be adjusted online and the effect on switching speeds is demonstrated experimentally by double pulse tests.

Source: IEEE Design Methodologies Conference (DMC)

DOI: 10.1109/dmc62632.2024.10812130

Authors: Nicolas Rouger, Fabien Devilliers

Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d'Energie

Language: English

Topic: Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Technologies

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: green

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche