Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs

This work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver for SiC MOSFETs, based on a magnetic transformer that simultaneously provides to the secondary side the turn-on and turn-off gate signals and the power required for an adequate gate control. This avoids the use of a dedicated DC-DC isolated c...

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Main Authors: Garcia, Jorge, Gurpinar, Emre, Castellazzi, Alberto
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41509/
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author Garcia, Jorge
Gurpinar, Emre
Castellazzi, Alberto
author_facet Garcia, Jorge
Gurpinar, Emre
Castellazzi, Alberto
author_sort Garcia, Jorge
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver for SiC MOSFETs, based on a magnetic transformer that simultaneously provides to the secondary side the turn-on and turn-off gate signals and the power required for an adequate gate control. This avoids the use of a dedicated DC-DC isolated converter and optocoupler. The original pulse signal is converted into impulses, avoiding transformer saturation at any duty ratio operation. The small size of the resulting transformer enables an overall size reduction vs. conventional solutions (based either in magnetic or optocoupler + power supply). This enables much more compact designs, which are critical in high-power density applications and multilevel converters. After describing the basic operation of the driver, experimental results on a 2kW prototype demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal. It is worth mentioning that this design is also suitable for GaN devices with minor design changes
first_indexed 2025-11-14T19:45:38Z
format Conference or Workshop Item
id nottingham-41509
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:45:38Z
publishDate 2016
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-415092020-05-04T18:21:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41509/ Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs Garcia, Jorge Gurpinar, Emre Castellazzi, Alberto This work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver for SiC MOSFETs, based on a magnetic transformer that simultaneously provides to the secondary side the turn-on and turn-off gate signals and the power required for an adequate gate control. This avoids the use of a dedicated DC-DC isolated converter and optocoupler. The original pulse signal is converted into impulses, avoiding transformer saturation at any duty ratio operation. The small size of the resulting transformer enables an overall size reduction vs. conventional solutions (based either in magnetic or optocoupler + power supply). This enables much more compact designs, which are critical in high-power density applications and multilevel converters. After describing the basic operation of the driver, experimental results on a 2kW prototype demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal. It is worth mentioning that this design is also suitable for GaN devices with minor design changes 2016-11-08 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Garcia, Jorge, Gurpinar, Emre and Castellazzi, Alberto (2016) Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs. In: 4th IEEE Workshop on Wide Bandgap Power Devices and Applications (WiPDA 2016), 7-9 Nov 2016, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA. Power electronics Wide band-gap devices gate drivers http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7799910/
spellingShingle Power electronics
Wide band-gap devices
gate drivers
Garcia, Jorge
Gurpinar, Emre
Castellazzi, Alberto
Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_full Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_fullStr Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_full_unstemmed Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_short Impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_sort impulse transformer based secondary-side self-powered gate-driver for wide-range pwm operation of sic power mosfets
topic Power electronics
Wide band-gap devices
gate drivers
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41509/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41509/