Comprehensive Study on Gate Driver for SiC-MOSFETs with Gate Boost

Abstract

This paper presents a high-speed, low loss, and low noise gate driver for silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFETs. We propose a gate boost circuit to reduce the switching loss and delay time without increasing the switching noise. The proposed gate driver enables converter-level efficiency improvements or power density enhancements. SiC MOSFETs have attracted significant interest as the next generation power devices. In general, the switching performance of power devices exhibits a trade-off between switching loss and noise. SiC-MOSFETs are expected to switch faster than Silicon IGBTs; however, faster switching might cause switching noise problems such as unwanted electromagnetic interferences (EMI). In this paper, we propose a gate driver topology that improves the switching performance of SiC-MOSFETs, and confirm the reduction in switching loss and delay time through experimental results.