Digital Gate Driver IC with Fully Integrated Automatic Timing Control Function in Stop-and-Go Gate Drive for IGBTs

To reduce loss and noise during switching of IGBTs at low cost even under changing operating conditions, namely load current (
$I_{\mathrm{L}}$
) and junction temperature (
$T_{\mathrm{J}}$
) variation, the world's first active digital gate driver IC with fully integrated automatic timing control function that achieves both single-chip integration and real-time control is developed. In order to handle various IGBTs with one type of gate driver, the proposed IC also has the world's first 6-bit programmable gate current function in the closed-loop active gate drivers. In the double pulse test of IGBT, compared with the conventional single-step gate drive, the stop-and-go gate drive with automatic timing control using the proposed IC effectively reduces the switching loss (
$E_{\text{LOSS}}$
) under the collector current overshoot (
$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$
))-aligned condition and reduces
$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$
under
$E_{\text{LOSS}}$
-aligned condition with
$I_{\mathrm{L}}$
ranging from 10 A to 80 A and
$T_{\mathrm{J}}$
ranging from 25 °C (room temperature) to 125 °C, and particularly at the condition of
$I_{\mathrm{L}}=80$
A at 25 °C, the proposed gate driver reduces
$E_{\text{LOSS}}$
by 49 % under the
$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$
-aligned condition and reduces
$I_{\text{OVERSHOOT}}$
by 33 % under the
$E_{\text{LOSS}}$
-aligned condition.