Abstract
The silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET is characterized by high operating voltage, temperature, switching frequency and efficiency which enables a converter to achieve high power density. However, at high switching frequency, the crosstalk phenomenon occurs when the gate voltage spike introduced by high dv/dt and voltage ringing forces false turn-on of SiC MOSFET which causes a crow-bar current thereby increasing switching losses. In order to increase the immunity against the crosstalk phenomenon in a half-bridge configuration, this paper presents a gate driver for SiC MOSFET capable of generating the negative turn-off voltage without using a negative power supply. In addition, the effect of parasitic inductances on the switching response is analyzed and an RC snubber is designed using high-frequency based circuit reduction technique to dampen the switching ringing. The performance of the proposed gate driver and the designed RC snubber is validated using simulation and experiment at the 1 MHz switching frequency. The results show that the proposed gate driver with RC snubber eliminates crosstalk by maintaining any spurious gate spike below the gate threshold voltage.
Highlights
The demand for fast-switching, high voltage, and high-temperature devices, capable of operating at elevated efficiency has enabled the trend towards WBG semiconductor materials [1,2]
The recent research focuses on the gate driver design for silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET to enable the high switching speed, featuring the damping of parasitic resonance and crosstalk suppression [6,7]
To simulate the Spice model of SiC MOSFET provided by Cree Inc., LTspice software is used with a step size of 1 ns
Summary
The demand for fast-switching, high voltage, and high-temperature devices, capable of operating at elevated efficiency has enabled the trend towards WBG semiconductor materials [1,2]. The recent research focuses on the gate driver design for SiC MOSFET to enable the high switching speed, featuring the damping of parasitic resonance and crosstalk suppression [6,7]. Due to the high internal gate and source impedances, the gate voltage feedback for crosstalk detection lacks accuracy and degrades the effectiveness of active suppression system Another reported technique used a negatively biased gate voltage, which by level shifting the gate voltage spike prevents false turn-on and accelerates the SiC MOSFET’s turn-off [14]. The parasitic inductance and stray capacitance of SiC MOSFET at a high-switching frequency manifest resonance which introduces a voltage overshoot and ringing during turn-off transition [17].
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