High Bandwidth Active Gate Driver for Simultaneous Reduction of Switching Surge and Switching Loss of SiC-MOSFET

Abstract

This study investigates an active gate driver (AGD) for an SiC-MOSFET. The source current feedback type AGD utilizes the induced voltage of the source wire inductance as a negative feedback signal to regulate the source current di/dt. Recent improvements in the switching performance of the AGD is limited due to the feedback system bandwidth. In this paper, a high bandwidth current feedback type power operational amplifier is applied as the gate drive circuit. Switching characteristics of the conventional resistive gate driver and AGD are experimentally investigated via a double pulse test setup. The switching setup condition is 700 V / 80 A. This paper describes the development of the AGD circuit and experimental results. The over-shoot and ringing of the Vds and Is are reduced using the AGD. Moreover, the switching loss is simultaneously reduced.