Advanced gate driver for IGBT devices with dv/dt and peak voltage limitation based on active gate-emitter voltage control

An advanced gate drive unit for 1.2 kV IGBT modules has been developed. It includes two main features: limitation of the collector-emitter voltage slope and of the collector-emitter peak voltage. This is achieved through a feedback loop with a capacitive/resistive voltage divider coupled to the gate-emitter voltage of the IGBT. For the studied case a reduction of the switching losses of around 25% is achieves. An experimental verification and comparison to a commercially available gate drive unit with active clamping based on a series connections of TVS diodes is presented. The proposed gate drive unit can be used in applications with high stray inductance to ensure optimum switching behaviour of every switching transient.