A Dual-Switch Discontinuous Current-Source Gate Driver Overcoming the Current Diversion Problem for a Buck VRM

In this article, a novel dual-switch discontinuous current-source gate driver (CSD) suitable for driving the high-side mosfet (HS mosfet) of buck voltage regulator module (VRM) is presented. The proposed gate driver completely solves the gate current diversion problem, which most of the previous CSDs suffer from, during turn-off transition. Thus, in comparison to most of the previous CSDs, the proposed gate driver achieves to turn-off the power mosfet considerably faster and with much higher effective gate current, which leads to significant reduction of turn-off losses. Whereas, turn-on losses of buck VRM HS mosfet driven by the proposed CSD and the previous CSDs are equal. Furthermore, the introduced gate driver consists of the minimum number of control switches and circuit elements, compared to previous CSDs. The proposed gate driver is analyzed and a prototype of the driver operating at 1 MHz is implemented in order to validate the theoretical analysis.