Intelligent Automotive Isolated Gate Driver with Adaptive Fault Management and Built-in Switched Mode Power Supply

This paper presents a highly integrated galvanic isolated emitter-sensing gate driver. It uses optical coupling technology for safe isolation and strong noise immunity between the microcontroller circuitry and the high voltage switching power devices. The gate driver features a cycle-by-cycle fail-safe protection mechanism to ensure power device’s safe operations. It adopts an adaptive blanking time method for quick protection response, and an adaptive shut-down method for efficient over current or short circuit protection. It also has a built-in switched mode power supply controller. For optimal and reliable operation of power inverter system, the gate driver has an integrated temperature sensor to monitor the power device’s temperature.