Transductor based high speed gate drive

Modelling and implementation of a novel high speed gate drive is presented. The complementary drive of high side and low side switch is realised using one planar transformer only. Both switches are isolated from the control. While energy is transferred using e.g. a flyback converter switching pulses are superposed using additional windings adopting the physics of transductors. The benefits using a planar printed circuit board (PCB) transformer are besides its high reliability and low cost the outstanding isolation capability of FR4 material and the ease to integrate the additional pulse windings. The drawback of PCB transformers demanding for many layers to accommodate the windings is circumvented using a local surface mounted additional PCB. The driver is capable of sourcing and sinking several amperes peak current at switching frequencies in the range of 0 Hz < f_s < 500 kHz with variable duty cycle 0 < D < 1. It is analysed and its performance is proven using a prototype operating a series resonant inverter with 1 kW output power.