A Si/SiC Hybrid Switching Gate Driver Design and Turn-Off Loss Optimization Based on IGBT Current Detection

This paper presents a new gate driver circuit design based on detecting the current of IGBT to realize the adaptive shutdown of SiC MOSFETs, which can realize the split of one PWM signal input into two independent drive signals with certain delay time to drive Si IGBTs and SiC MOSFETs respectively, and thus realize the cost-effectiveness and loss optimization of the Si/SiC hybrid switch by specific parameter settings. The cost-effectiveness of the Si/SiC hybrid switches and the optimization of losses through specific parameter settings can be achieved. The relationship between the performance and efficiency of the hybrid switches and the circuit parameters in the gate drive circuit is investigated and verified in a BOOST circuit based on Si/SiC hybrid switches. The experimental results of a 20 kHz BOOST circuit show that the efficiency of the Si/SiC hybrid switch with the new gate driver circuit and the corresponding loss control strategy can be improved but the device cost can be significantly reduced compared to the use of all-Si IGBTs and all-SiC MOSFETs.