An Improved Monitoring of Gate Leakage Current on SiC Power MOSFETs using Source Driver Topology

This paper presents an innovative source driver topology intending to harmonize gate leakage current monitoring and desaturation (DESAT) protection circuits. As the high voltage diodes’ leakage current flows through the estimation circuit, both the gate leakage current monitoring circuit and the protection circuit cannot coexist. One of the examined solutions is to drive the power semiconductor device in the source path. This new topology was successfully implemented and tested. Accordingly, a gate leakage current monitoring circuit compatible with DESAT is proposed in this paper.