SiC Gate driver

[aneesmohammed]

Hello, Good morning from india....

I am very new to SiC mosfets and associated gate drivers...I often use optocouplers like TLP250 in most of my power electronic projects, But now i need to clarify whether can i use a Gate driver circuit which is successful in Si MOSFETs but this time for a SiC MOSFETs. Apart from an improved technology Is SiC Mosfets require any special gate drive requirements?

For example, I need to use a 1200V SiC Mosfet from Wolfspeed (https://assets.wolfspeed.com/uploads/2023/08/Wolfspeed_C3M0075120K-A_data_sheet.pdf)....Do anyone have any prior experience of this circuit ?? If yes suggest me a simplest gate driver circuit for this Mosfet !!

Let the requirements be:

1) Need to block a 700V at worst case
2) Drain current is about 6A at peak

 

[KlausST]

Hi,

if I had to do this, I´d
* first consult the datasheet (it gives the gate drive requirements)
* then look for application note from SiC MOSFET manufacturers, they best know how to drive the SiC MOSFETs (read through some different ones)

For sure you need to know
* switching frequency
* duty cycle range

Klaus

 

[cupoftea]

SiC is usually a bit more Vgs needed.
But yes, datasheet will reveal all to you.
Infineon do some good SiC drivers....and have app notes about it.

 

[hiphei]

Hello!

I recently spent some time looking for drivers for SiCfet's.. I chose to go with Ti UCC53x0 -series.. I think You might find at least a simple to use driver for Your application from that ic-family.. They have different peak drive current ratings i think up to 9A and the family has also ic's in multiple output configurations; single supply and separate on (source) and off (sink) pins, or dual supply for negative turn off that some applications require and single output, or miller clamp version..! They also feature true isolation with rather good cm immunity from input side to output..which may come in handy since sicfets may produce quite a bit of cmi due to extremely fast switching (well..kelvin source too may come in handy with them, but for these benefits you need isolated supply for driver output side..)..

 

[dick_freebird]

The first MOSFET drivers I designed would have been ideal for SiC because they were done back in the '80s when silicon MOSFETs had not-quite-as-but-still-crappy gate qualities including Low sub threshold slope and VT shifts. By reference to a then current part (UC1701 maybe? Been over 30 years....) the part had 0-5V front end, output neg rail anywhere 0 - -10V, pos rail 8 - 30V.

The process for it has been dead for over 20 years and it only ever had one customer for a program that got killed. But it was a good part and more to the point, equivalents (that don't cost north of $1K per piece) probably are still out there - at least other equally crusty Silicon General / Unitrode parts survive to this day. How many more days, well, that's a follow-on question.