Experimental Investigation of an Integrated Optical Interface for Power MOSFET Drivers

To solve the galvanic isolation challenges in drivers related to gate signal transfer to power transistors, an optical detector was monolithically integrated within a 600 V vertical power transistor without any modifications in the fabrication process. After fabricating an initial prototype, preliminary static and dynamic characterization results have been investigated. The fabricated devices showed responsivities of 0.046 A/W at 0 V bias and 0.15 A/W at 15 V reverse bias and a bandwidth of at least 800 kHz when triggered with a 525 nm wavelength LED at an optical power in the microwatt range.