Integrated galvanically isolated MOSFET and IGBT gate-driver circuit with switching speed control

This paper presents a galvanically isolated gate-driver integrated circuit realized as an ASIC chipset providing a flexible control of the switching speed of the driven power switches (i.e., IGBT or MOSFET). The driver chipset provides signal and power transmission over a galvanic isolation, thus being able to drive low-side and high-side power switches in power converters. It provides independent control of turn-on and turn-off switching speed by modulating the gate turn-on and turn-off voltage slopes using burst pulses in the MHz range. This function is combined with regenerative switching, thus reducing the energy losses in the gate-driver circuit of the power switch by more than 50%. The gate-driver ASIC chipset was manufactured in a high-temperature automotive grade 0.35μm mixed-signal CMOS technology, thus allowing switching speeds in the MHz range at voltage amplitudes as high as 18V. The paper shows the novel proposed driving concept with its implemented topology and simulation results. Experimental results validate the proposed gate-driver concept based on the manufactured ASIC chipset combined with a typical IGBT as power switch.