A Novel High-Efficiency Gate Drive Circuit for Normally Off-Type GaN FET

Author

Umegami, Hirokatsu ; Hattori, Fumiya ; Nozaki, Y. ; Yamamoto, Manabu ; Machida, Osamu

Author_Institution

Shimane Univ., Matsue, Japan

Volume

50

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan.-Feb. 2014

Firstpage

593

Lastpage

599

Abstract

A novel gate drive circuit suitable for a next-generation semiconductor [gallium nitride field-effect transistor (GaN FET)] is proposed and discussed in this paper. The GaN FET has an inherent problem in that its loss increases on the reverse conduction time, if it is driven with a conventional gate drive circuit. This active discharged-type gate drive circuit proposed here can decrease the loss, so that the disadvantage is overcome. The gate drive loss is also analyzed, and the results have errors within the range of 5%. The effectiveness of the gate drive circuit is evaluated by applying a low leakage current (LLC) converter. The results show that the proposed circuit can improve the efficiency at all ranges.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; field effect transistors; gallium compounds; leakage currents; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; active discharged-type gate drive circuit; gate drive loss; high-efficiency gate drive circuit; low leakage current converter; next-generation semiconductor gallium nitride field-effect transistor; normally off-type FET; reverse conduction time; Capacitors; Drives; Gallium nitride; Logic gates; MOSFET; Silicon; GaN field-effect transistor (GaN FET); Gallium nitride; gate drive circuit; gate drive loss analysis; normally off;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-9994

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TIA.2013.2267512

Filename

6527943