Active Current Source IGBT Gate Drive With Closed-Loop di/dt and dv/dt Control

Abstract

This paper proposes an active current source gate drive (ACSD) method based on voltage controlled current source(VCCS) feedback control strategy for high-power IGBTs. Unlike the common voltage source gate drive, the proposed ACSD method provides constant drive current to charge and discharge an IGBT. With a large gate drive current, high switching speed and low switching losses can be achieved in a power converter. However, a high-current/voltage overshoot occurs. To solve this problem, a feedback current proportional to the di/dt or dv/dt signal is generated to the IGBT gate. Thus, direct control of the net gate drive current is produced. Then, the current/voltage overshoot is controlled with little sacrifice in switching time, and the switching losses are lower than that with the conventional gate drive method operating simply by gate resistance switchover. The operation principle and circuit implementation of the proposed ACSD method are presented. The experimental results from a 1200 V/800 A IGBT module verify the performance of the proposed method.