Gate Driver Selection for C3M0065100J (Ton <20ns, Period <200ns)

Fredy

Please I am seeking help on the best gate driver to use on C3M0065100J to achieve a fast switching time of about Ton <20ns and Period <200ns. My system voltage is about 700VDC. Thanks for your suggestions.

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AAnders

Hello Fredy,

If I understand your question correctly, you are looking for a 20ns pulse width, correct? That is a very narrow pulse, but may be possible to achieve with the device you mentioned. In order to achieve that narrow of a pulse, you will need to consider several factors.

1. The gate driver must be capable of producing a 20ns pulse. Very few isolated gate drivers can achieve this. Many are limited to 50-100ns minimum.
2. The gate driver must have a strong (low resistance) output in order to be able to charge and discharge the gate quickly. The gate resistor you select will also need to be a low value.
3. The loop inductance from the SiC device to the bus needs to be very low in order to enable switching this fast without creating large overvoltage transients. A laminated bus structure and low inductance capacitors, likely including a combination of film and ceramic capacitors located very close to the switching leg will be needed.

One driver that has the potential to meet these requirements is the UCC21320 from Texas Instruments. It has a 20ns minimum pulse width as well as good drive strength.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Adam

Fredy

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your response to my inquiry and your suggestion. My design requires a very narrow pulse at a high switching speed. I wanted to purchase the SpeedVal Kit, but I wanted to be sure this will meet my design requirement or instead to purchase only the Wolfspeed C3M0065100J. Finally, can you advice if the SpeedVal Kit with CGD1700HB2M-UNA and EVAL-ADUM4146WHN1Z gate drivers can achieve this also?

Thanks for your Assistance.

Fredy

AAnders

Hi Fredy,

Unfortunately neither gate driver IC is capable of 20ns pulse widths. The UCC21710 on CGD1700HB2M-UNA has a 40ns deglitch filter in the driver IC itself, so it will not respond to a 20ns pulse. The EVAL-ADUM4146WHN1Z minimum pulse width is specified as 50ns in the gate driver IC datasheet.

One option is to use the SpeedVal Kit motherboard and MOSFET daughter card, and develop your own gate driver card that can plug on using the UCC21320, or another IC with faster timings. You can download the design files for the motherboard to see all of the connections and dimensions that you would need to design a gate driver card to work with it. We plan to offer the C3M0065090J on a power daughter card later this year, which is very similar to the part you are interested in and is also very fast.

Fredy

Hi Adam,

Am so grateful for your expertise advice. I will follow your suggestion.

Regards,