Digital Gate Driver IC with Real-Time Gate Current Change by Sensing Drain Current to Cope with Operating Condition Variations of SiC MOSFET

A digital gate driver IC with real-time gate current (IG) change by sensing drain current (I
D
) is applied to SiC MOSFETs, and it is demonstrated that the IC always reduces switching loss and switching noise by always performing appropriate active gate driving even when the operating conditions of SiC MOSFETs, such as load current and junction temperature, change. The IC integrates all of a current-source based digital gate driver which changes I
G
in 6 bits, a dID/dt sensor to detect I
G
switching timing, and a controller into a single chip. In the turn-on measurement of an SiC MOSFET at 600 V and 25 °C, when the load current changes to 20 A, 70 A, and 120 A, compared with the conventional single-step gate drive, the active gate drive using the developed IC reduced the switching loss by 17 %, 12 %, and 11 % under I
D
overshoot-aligned condition, respectively.