Design of High Isolation and Compact Gate Driver for 6.5 kV IGBT Module in Medium Voltage Converters

Medium voltage (MV) power devices require high isolation, high driving capability, high immunity to noise and small footprint for the gate driver. In this paper, the integrated auxiliary power supply and gate driver scheme are presented for the parallel operation of multiple 6.5 kV Si IGBT modules. A planar transformer (PT) using PCB-winding is fabricated to verify how the compact planar structure assists in achieving high voltage barrier, low volume without degrading parasitics. And the corresponding power transfer topology is introduced. In addition, a bipolar junction transistor totem pole (BJT-TP) array is elaborated to boost driving current combating the high junction charge. In the last part, the partial discharge (PD) performance is tested on the fabricated PT, and a double pulse test is demonstrated to verify the proposed analysis and design.