Driving and protecting the latest high voltage and current power MOS and IGBTs

On-line fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant operation of modular multilevel converters — A comprehensive review

“…The recently emerging wide bandgap devices require faster detection speed (i.e.,<5μs) for SC fault, due to smaller die size and reduced thermal capacitance [6]. Currently, most of the commercial gate drivers have been integrated with short-circuit detection/protection, and one broadly adopted solution is named desaturation protection, in which the on-state voltage of the switching devices will be sensed and compared to a predetermined threshold value to determine a SC fault [7]. When such a SC fault is detected, the driver will softly turn off the switching devices in MMCs, which finally results in a switching OC fault in the MMCs.…”

“…Thus, short-circuit detection is typically implemented through the gate driver hardware circuits for rapid protection, rather than reply on online diagnostic algorithms. The most well-known SC diagnostic method is desaturation detection in which the on-state voltage of the switching device will be detected by a sensing diode and compared to a predetermined value [7][36] [37]. To avoid false diagnosis of the SC fault and trigger the protection, this solution requires a programmed delay, the so-called blanking time, of around 1-5…”

Open‐phase fault tolerant driving operation of dual‐inverter‐based traction drive

“…Multiple strategies exist for detecting such a condition, such as Park's vector method [11] or normalised DC current methods [12]. Inverter short-circuit faults can be detected by desaturation protection circuitry in the gate driver [13][14][15]. After detection, open or short-circuited inverter phases could be isolated using methods proposed in [7].…”