Design analysis and improvement of an IGBT gate drive circuit for magnet power supplies using a physics-based circuit model

This paper presents the design analysis and improvement of an Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) gate drive circuit for the magnet power supplies of accelerator systems. By exploring the effects of the gate driving current and resistance, a low noise gate driver was developed and evaluated. The dv/dt and di /dt values that affect voltage and current spikes are modeled through the physics-based circuit model. With the improvement of a gate driver, the power supply achieved 87% efficiency at a load current of 460A with 20kHz switching, resulting in a 60% reduction of turn-off switching noise. For effective validation, the proposed gate drive circuit was simulated through the physics-based circuit model, and implemented and tested*.