Noise Propagation Study within Gate Drivers for Medium-Voltage High Power SiC-Based Converters, Caused by Near Field Coupling

Unlike the converter-level noise emissions which can be regulated by certain EMI/EMC standards, the noise inside the power converter has no standard to follow. Moreover, even if a converter complies with certain standards at its terminals, the internal components are not guaranteed to work without issues. Meanwhile, modern power converters consist of many auxiliary circuits that are subject to malfunction due to the switching noise propagated inside of it. It is of great importance to study the mechanisms by which the noise is induced on low-power logic circuitry, caused by the switching transient of the high power main circuit power stage. This paper is a continuity of our previous work regarding the noise propagation inside the power converter, particularly the noise induced on gate driver PCB traces caused by the fast switching of the high power main circuit via near field coupling. The noise at the input pins of the critical ICs is the point of interest. A generic methodology is proposed, and a detailed near field noise propagation model on PCB traces is proposed and validated experimentally, comprising both magnetic and electric near field coupling. The noise caused by the near fields are quantified and discussed. Factors that influence noise coupling are also investigated.