A Technical Review on the Proper Design of Gate Drivers in Industrial Power Electronics Applications

Abstract

Power semiconductor devices are the most important components in power electronics applications. They are also the most fragile components of electronic circuits. A power semiconductor device's switching performance and protection depend on the gate drive circuit specifications. Therefore, choosing an appropriate gate-driver and designing its corresponding circuits is necessary. This paper is a technical review of the proper design of gate drivers for silicon power switches (like Si IGBT and Si MOSFET) in industrial power electronics applications. In this paper first conducts an overview of the main specifications of gate drivers for industrial power electronics applications. Then, concerning the protective role that a gate-driver can provide, crucial points of an effective design are discussed. Finally, a circuit is proposed to test the gate driver's short-circuit protection. The circuit is experimentally evaluated for three gate drives, and the results are discussed. A practical comparison of the protection performance of commercial gate drives ACPL-330J, ACPL331, and PC929 is also conducted.

Keywords

• power semiconductor devices
• gate drive circuit
• igbt gate drive