A Novel Single-Gate Driver Circuit for SiC+Si Hybrid Switch With Variable Triggering Pattern

Abstract

Hybrid switches are attracting increasing attention recently, due to their high efficiency and low cost. Normally, two separated gate drivers and driving signals are needed for the hybrid switch, which leads to more cost and more control complexity. A novel gate driver circuit for SiC+Si hybrid switches is proposed using single driving signal and single-gate driver in this article. Two simple resistance-capacitance (RC) delay circuits are used for generating different time-delays required by two different triggering patterns to provide more flexibility. The detailed operation principles, mathematical analysis, and the guidance for the selection of key components of the proposed circuit are provided. The merits of the proposed driver are: first, simple structure; second, low control complexity; third, more flexibility; and fourth, low cost. A 2-kW Silicon Carbide (SiC)-MOSFET+Si-insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) hybrid switch buck converter is built to validate the proposed gate driver circuit. The analysis and experimental results match very well, which shows the effectiveness and merits of the proposed method.