High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs

The present work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver suitable for SiC MOSFETs. The driver is implemented by means of two small magnetic transformers, to provide the turn-on and turn-off gate signals, as well as the power required for an adequate gate control. The operation is based on th...

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Main Authors: Garcia, Jorge, Gurpinar, Emre, Castellazzi, Alberto
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43843/
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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 The present work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver suitable for SiC MOSFETs. The driver is implemented by means of two small magnetic transformers, to provide the turn-on and turn-off gate signals, as well as the power required for an adequate gate control. The operation is based on the modulation of the PWM pulses with a high frequency (HF) square-waveform signal. The resulting modulated AC waveform is applied to the primary side of the first transformer, and reconstructed at the secondary side to obtain the gate driving signal. Simultaneously, the HF modulating signal is connected to the primary of the second transformer, to provide the required gate drive voltage levels and power at the secondary side, ensuring full range duty ratio operation. Given that both primary side signals are HF symmetrical waveforms, saturation is avoided at both transformers, for any duty ratio operation. Therefore, the proposed solution provides galvanic isolation for power and gate signal transfer with very small core sizes, allowing for an overall size reduction vs. conventional solutions. This enables much more compact designs, which are critical in high-power density applications and multilevel converters. After describing the basic operation, experimental results on a prototype are shown, thus demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed solution
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format Conference or Workshop Item
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:53:25Z
publishDate 2017
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spelling nottingham-438432020-05-04T18:39:16Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43843/ High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs Garcia, Jorge Gurpinar, Emre Castellazzi, Alberto The present work proposes a solution for an isolated gate driver suitable for SiC MOSFETs. The driver is implemented by means of two small magnetic transformers, to provide the turn-on and turn-off gate signals, as well as the power required for an adequate gate control. The operation is based on the modulation of the PWM pulses with a high frequency (HF) square-waveform signal. The resulting modulated AC waveform is applied to the primary side of the first transformer, and reconstructed at the secondary side to obtain the gate driving signal. Simultaneously, the HF modulating signal is connected to the primary of the second transformer, to provide the required gate drive voltage levels and power at the secondary side, ensuring full range duty ratio operation. Given that both primary side signals are HF symmetrical waveforms, saturation is avoided at both transformers, for any duty ratio operation. Therefore, the proposed solution provides galvanic isolation for power and gate signal transfer with very small core sizes, allowing for an overall size reduction vs. conventional solutions. This enables much more compact designs, which are critical in high-power density applications and multilevel converters. After describing the basic operation, experimental results on a prototype are shown, thus demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed solution 2017-03-26 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Garcia, Jorge, Gurpinar, Emre and Castellazzi, Alberto (2017) High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs. In: 2017 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC), 26-30 March 2017, Tampa, Florida, USA. gate driver SiC MOSFET Wide Band Gap devices http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7930806/
spellingShingle gate driver
SiC MOSFET
Wide Band Gap devices
Garcia, Jorge
Gurpinar, Emre
Castellazzi, Alberto
High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_full High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_fullStr High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_full_unstemmed High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_short High-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range PWM operation of SiC power MOSFETs
title_sort high-frequency modulated secondary-side self-powered isolated gate driver for full range pwm operation of sic power mosfets
topic gate driver
SiC MOSFET
Wide Band Gap devices
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43843/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43843/