A Comparison of Gate Resistance and Gate Voltage Manipulation Active Gate Drivers for Silicon Carbide MOSFETs

Numerous studies in power electronics literature have focused on gate resistance manipulation (GRM) and gate voltage manipulation (GVM) Active Gate Drivers (AGD) for Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFETs. Despite this, there has been a lack of direct, conceptual comparisons between these two methodologies. This paper presents a comprehensive comparison of GRMAGD and GVMAGD with pulse-to-pulse adaptation. Analysis, conducted under equivalent conditions in double pulse measurements, reveals that while both methods exhibit similar switching performance in active turn-on scenarios, GRMAGDs demonstrate superior switching efficiency during active turn-off switching. It is additionally observed that GVMAGDs, using a specific gate driving voltage pattern, are more sensitive to variations in threshold voltage. Considering these factors, along with their lower complexity and cost, GRMAGDs emerge as the more favorable option over GVMAGDs in applications with widely varying load.