CMOS gate driver with integrated optical receiver for power electronics applications

This paper presents a CMOS gate driver integrating the required functions from the optical control signal receiver to the output stage gate charge control. Different prototypes were designed and fabricated based on the CMOS industrial technologies available through Multi-Project Wafers (0.35μm LV bulk). Integrated optical receivers are used to provide isolated and low parasitics propagation path for the gate control signal. Such detectors exhibit a maximum responsivity above 0.32 A/W and a modulation bandwidth above 10MHz while connected to the integrated signal processing unit. This integrated gate driver requires a low optical power and is drastically improving the dv/dt immunity, parasitics and integration level. The experimental results have validated the functionalities and performances of this gate driver in order to drive a power transistor in a power converter.