A Disruptive Technology – Improving Half-Bridge Gate Driver Performances Using Galvanic Isolation

This paper presents an alternative isolation technique for half-bridge gate drivers (HBGD). The circuit separates the high voltage module that commands the high-side power switch from the low voltage module which controls the low-side power transistor by means of galvanic isolation (GI). State-of-the-art topologies, junction isolation and silicon on insulator, are limited by negative transient immunity and high manufacturing costs, respectively. GI obtains increased negative transient immunity without added process costs. The proposed method was implemented in a standard 0.25 μm CMOS BCD technology and experimental results highlight its superior performances.