Gate driver for the active thermal control of a DC/DC GaN-based converter

Abstract

Wide-Band-Gap power semiconductors based on SiC and GaN offer some significant advantages compared to Si-devices, in particular higher switching speed and higher operating temperature. These features offer potentially increased power density, which makes the temperature management critical especially for the PCB and components to which the GaN is connected. In this paper, an active gate driver with active thermal control is implemented and can be used to alter the losses of a DC/DC buck converter based on GaN transistors, with the aim of reducing the thermal cycling thus improving the converter's lifetime.

Junction Temperature Control for More Reliable Power Electronics

“…As a consequence, they have an increased power density, which makes the temperature management critical, especially for the PCB and components to which the GaN is connected. Therefore, active gate control has been applied in [31] to reduce the thermal cycling in a GaN-based DC/DC converter. In Fig.…”

Review of Power Semiconductor Device Reliability for Power Converters

“…But this method requires a precise control of the voltage level, which is too difficult to implement. This problem has been improved by [94]. The two-step gate drive unit is employed in [94], which divides the gate voltage into two levels.…”

“…This problem has been improved by [94]. The two-step gate drive unit is employed in [94], which divides the gate voltage into two levels. The switching loss and conduction loss of GaN can be adjusted by controlling the low level of time, at the same time the junction temperature is smoothed as shown in Fig.…”

“…On the basis of existing research, it is still necessary to find out more indicators that can reflect the health condition more comprehensively and understand the precursors' variation [92]- [94] [97]- [102] [106]…”

Active methods to improve reliability in power electronics

“…On the layer of the modulator a selection of the switching frequency [34] and the modulation method [35] have been applied. On hardware layer the gate voltage has been adjusted [36]. An electrothermal model can be used to achieve online estimations of the junction temperatures on the basis of electrical measurements or Thermo-Sensitive Electrical Parameters (TSEP) [37].…”