A Novel Level Shifter Driver for SiC MOSFET With Passive Triggered Clamping Circuit

Abstract

Compared to the traditional Si devices, SiC devices can operate with much faster switching speed. Therefore, SiC is more popular in the automotive industry as a replacement for Si devices. However, much higher dv/dt will be inevitably induced due to the increased switching speed, which leads to more serious crosstalk issues. In this article, a novel gate driver with a tunable negative voltage and miller clamping circuit is proposed. At first, a level shift circuit, which consists of low-cost passive elements is used to produce tunable negative voltages. Second, a passive triggered miller clamping circuit involving two n-channel mosfets is proposed to provide a low impedance path for the crosstalk current i_gd. This part of the circuit takes advantage of low cost and less complexity in implementation and design. Then, a comprehensive simulation comparison of the novel level shifter is conducted. Finally, the double-pulse test experiments demonstrate the switching performance and crosstalk suppression performance of the proposed gate driver.