A Self-Powered Gate Driving Scheme Enabled by the GaN/SiC Cascode Power Device

Compared with traditional power devices, the GaN/SiC cascode device has one more node, the interconnection middle node (M node) between the high-voltage JFET and the low-voltage HEMT. This M node can be exploited to supply power to the gate driver circuits with more compact and simpler schemes. In this work, a self-powered gate driving scheme is proposed and demonstrated by directly sourcing power from the M node of a GaN/SiC cascode power device for the first time. The new design concept eliminates the external power supply for the gate driver circuit with a simplified and compact design. Moreover, experiment results confirmed the new design does not compromise or adversely impact the switching performance of the power device, illustrating a pathway toward a more compact high-power-density design with high efficiency.