AN1306: Driving SiC MOSFET Switches Using the Si828x Isolated Gate Driver

PublishTime：2021-06-04

The Si828x products integrate isolation, gate drivers, fault detection, MOSFET protection, and readiness indicators into one package to drive power switch devices. The Si828x family can optimally drive SiC MOSFET switches in the most demanding applications through the addition of external circuits to boost gate drive current to the SiC MOSFET gate and fine-tune the DESAT protection, Soft Shutdown, and Miller voltage clamp.
This application note discusses drive requirements for SiC MOSFET switch devices. It provides guidance for selecting the external components necessary for driving and pretecting SiC MOSFET switches in high-voltage, high-performance applications.
●KEY FEATURES:
■ Describes how Si828x family can optimally drive SiC MOSFETs
■Provides guidance on circuit bill-of-materials for tuning desaturation detection timing, soft shutdown duration, and Miller voltage clamping
■ Shows how to build a simple external boost circuit for decreasing switching time, and thereby reducing switching losses
●Introduction: Silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET power switches are appropriate for a wide variety of inverter and motor control applications. Their device characteristics provide the basis for many performance advantages over silicon MOSFETs and IGBTs. While they present a similar functional load to a gate driver, they are different from standard MOS or IGBT power switches in several ways that place special demands on gate drive circuits.Designers may be motivated to choose SiC transistors over MOS or IGBT by factors such as lower switching losses, higher switching speeds, better thermal performance, higher power density, and lower system costs (despite the cost difference of the switch itself). For instance: for comparable devices operating at the same frequency, an IGBT circuit shows a 7X switching loss in contrast to a similar SiC device. To bring switching losses into near parity, the IGBT circuit must have its switching frequency reduced by 2/3. This results in an increased magnetics cost for the IGBT circuit of 2.5X, higher weight, and higher power loss. While SiC MOSFETs are currently more expensive than IGBTs (at time of publication, Q1 of 2021), as economies of scale kick in they will be lower in cost.The Si828x family of Gate Driver ICs is easily adapted for use with SiC MOSFET power switches by using external bill-of-materials(BOM) enhancements, yielding excellent performance and safe operation. This application note provides details on SiC gate drive requirements and choosing external BOM components to obtain optimal performance in gate drive and power switch safety

Brand of Product：	Silicon Labs
Part#：	Si828x family 、 Si828x 、 Si8281 、 Si8282 、 Si8283 、 Si8284 More Part#
Product Category：	Isolated Gate Driver 、 Gate Driver IC More
Application：	More
Data Type：	Application note & Design Guide More
Safety & Environment Standards：	More
Operating Temperature：	Please see the document for details
Qualification Grade：	More
Qualification Approval：	More
Package：
Language：	English Chinese Chinese and English Japanese
Date of Creation：	2021/05/21
Version Number：	Rev. 0.1
Data Encoding：	AN1306
Data Size：	1.2 MB

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