Infineon Technologies Austria Ag

Christian Locatelli

Diego Raffo

Martina Arosio

Weidong Chu

Wolfgang Frank

Davide Respigo

Eslam Ramadan Mohamed Alfawy

Andrea Luigi Francesco Mariconti

A gate driver circuit includes a high-side region that operates in a first voltage domain; a low-side region that operates in a second voltage domain lower than the first voltage domain; a gate driver configured to drive a power switch between an on-state and an off-state with an adaptive dead time; a capacitor cross-coupled to the high-side region and the low-side region; a logic circuit configured to use the capacitor to detect a voltage transient of the power switch based on a first crossing of a threshold, and detect an end of the voltage transient based on a second crossing of the threshold; and an active-passive discrimination circuit configured to indicate whether the voltage transient is active or passive. The logic circuit is configured to regulate the adaptive dead time based on the second crossing of the threshold and based on the voltage transient being passive.

Gate driver with self-adjusted adaptive dead time

A gate driver has a supply voltage terminal, a bootstrap terminal connected to the supply voltage terminal, a driver having a power input terminal connected to the bootstrap terminal and an output connected to a gate control signal output terminal and configured to generate a gate drive signal at the gate control signal output terminal based on a voltage on the power input terminal, a clamp driver connected to the bootstrap terminal, a clamp transistor connected between a clamp signal input terminal and a reference voltage terminal and having a gate connected to the clamp driver, and an energy harvesting circuit connected between the clamp signal input terminal and the gate of the clamp transistor.

Gate driver

A monolithic half-bridge gate driver includes a phase node terminal configured to be coupled to a phase node to which a high-side transistor and a low-side transistor of a half-bridge are coupled; a diode comprising an anode and a cathode, wherein the cathode is coupled to the phase node terminal; and a comparator comprising a first input terminal coupled to the anode of the diode for receiving a measurement value indicative of a phase voltage at the phase node terminal, a second input terminal coupled to a threshold source for receiving a threshold, and an output terminal configured to output a comparison result indicating whether the measurement value satisfies the threshold. The phase node terminal is configured to be connected to a high-side supply potential by the high-side transistor, and is configured to be connected to a low-side supply potential by the low-side transistor.

Protecting a power inverter by sensing a phase node voltage

A gate driver circuit for driving a power switch includes a gate driver having a first input for receiving an input signal and an output coupled to the power switch, the gate driver providing a primary gate current and an auxiliary gate current, and a differential voltage sensor having a first input for receiving the input signal, a second input coupled to a power supply voltage, a third input coupled to a terminal of the power switch, and an output coupled to a second input of the gate driver.

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Pavia, Italy

Christian Locatelli