A Self-powered Resonant Gate Driver for High Power MOSFET Modules

This paper develops a high efficiency gate driver for high power MOSFET modules with large input gate capacitance that includes several paralleling power MOSFET chips inside. The power MOSFET module is used in the high frequency, high power converter to achieve high power density. The conventional gate driver with gate resistor consumes huge power that results in the bulky gate resistor and needs large DC power supply to provide the power loss. In order to reduce the power loss and volume, a novel self-powered resonant gate driver is proposed which operates at wide switching frequency from hundreds of Hz to hundreds of kHz. The driver gets energy from the power bus. The additional driver supply is saved. A ten-fold power loss reduction is achieved compared to the resistive gate driver. This paper contains a description and analysis of the self-powered resonant gate driver and the optimum condition for its operation. The technical data for the built gate driver is also described. The lab prototype and test results are presented.