Gate Driver for High-Frequency Power Converter

This work explores the principle of utilizing gallium nitride devices as a gate driver for silicon carbide power devices. As silicon has long reached its performance limits, Wide Bandgap semiconductors such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide have emerged as promising alternatives due to their superior characteristics. However, few publications suggest using a gallium nitride-based gate driver for silicon carbide, high-voltage power devices. Unlike standard voltage source gate drivers, this paper proposes a novel bi-polar current source resonant gate driver topology using gallium nitride transistors as a gate drive circuit for silicon carbide power switching. The driver receives a single input supply and pulsed width modulation signal, producing a high current bi-polar gate driving signal. The gate driver is validated by employing the proposed gate driver to a high-power silicon carbide transistor in a resonant boost converter. The experimental results show that the new gate driver recovers the gate charge wasted energy and provides high performances in varying high voltage loads at a 2.5 MHz switching frequency while reducing the gate losses by 26%.