A 2–10 MHz GaN HEMTs Half-Bridge Driver With Bandgap Reference Comparator Clamping and Dual Level Shifters for Automotive Applications

Abstract

Gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are promising power devices due to their excellent characteristics. However, GaN HEMTs have vulnerable gates that are susceptible to noise and voltage spikes, limiting their implementation in power converters. This paper presents a GaN HEMTs half-bridge driver with bandgap reference comparator clamping (BGRCC) and dual level shifters (DLS) for high switching frequency automotive applications. The BGRCC scheme can adaptively clamp the bootstrap rail voltage at an appropriate level with acceptable voltage ripples, which guarantees the safety of high-side GaN HEMT. Meanwhile, DLS scheme is applied in both the high- and low-side driving path to effectively drive the GaN HEMTs with low propagation delay and high dv / dt immunity. The proposed driver is fabricated in 0.18 μm high voltage bipolar-complementary metaloxide semiconductor (CMOS)-double-diffused metaloxide semiconductor (DMOS) process and can support 2–10 MHz operating. The functionality and performance are verified by experimental results. A buck converter utilizing this driver with GaN HEMTs can achieve maximum efficiency of 91.58% with quite electromagnetic interference behavior in the 16.5-W output power rating when operating at 2 MHz, which is superior to conventional silicon-based power converters and suitable for automotive applications.