A Novel Single Isolation Channel Gate Driver With Bidirectional-Signal and Forward-Power Transmission

Conventional isolated gate drivers adopt separate isolation channels for gate driver signal and isolated power supply, which suffers from large signal delays, large size, and high cost at medium-voltage (MV) and high-voltage (HV) applications. Gate drivers with single isolation channel were proposed but suffered from gate driver power instability and limited duty-cycle range. A novel compact single isolation channel with bidirectional-signal and forward-power transmission gate driver is proposed in this letter. Gate driver signal is modulated by pulse edge modulation and transmitted through flyback converter with time-division multiplexing. Feedback signal is modulated by amplitude modulation and demodulated based upon the voltage proportional relationship between primary and secondary sides of a flyback transformer. 3D vertical packaging is adopted with an overall size of 20 mm×17 mm×16 mm. The proposed gate driver achieves max. driving current of 13.8 A and can drive silicon carbide devices with max. d
v
/d
t
of 154 V/ns. It can support max. gate driver signal frequency of 100 kHz with duty cycle ranging from 7.5% to 92.5%. Feedback signal transmission is also demonstrated by the desaturation circuit.