A Highly Integrable, Modular and Multi-Functional Fault Monitoring Active Gate Driver with Parallel Buffers for a Global Enhanced Reliability of Gen. 3 SiC Power MOSFETs

To address their fragility and limitations in high-reliability, safety-critical applications, especially in future aeronautic on-board power systems, SiC MOSFETs are increasingly paired with smart gate drivers. These drivers provide health diagnostics, dv/dt control to reduce losses and EMI, and integrated fault detection. With newer generations, SiC MOSFETs demonstrate increasingly shorter short-circuit withstand times. A multi-channel parallel gate driver with extensive fault detection and gate-oxide integrity monitoring, based on gate-source voltage monitoring is proposed. On commercial 1200 V Gen. 3 SiC MOSFETs, Hard Switching Faults and Faults Under Load are detected within 890 ns and 235 ns, respectively. Gate-Oxide cracks are identified before controllability is compromised, and the robustness of this detection method is experimentally validated.