A Simple and Novel Technique for Driving Silicon Carbide Power MOSFETs with Unipolar Supply Voltage

摘要

The paper proposes a simple and novel technique for driving a silicon carbide power MOSFET using silicon power MOSFET driver IC and single unipolar supply voltage. In the proposed technique, a unipolar supply voltage is given to the driver IC and split by an RC divider network for obtaining an intermediate reference point which is connected to the source terminal of the SiC MOSFET. The gate terminal is driven by the Si MOSFET driver IC and the required asymmetric bipolar voltage swing at the gate terminal for driving SiC MOSFET is obtained. This gives a simple driver circuit topology which requires a driver IC and few additional passive components. Unlike Si MOSFETs, the requirement of higher gate voltage while switching ON and negative gate bias while switching OFF, for driving SiC MOSFETs is satisfied by the proposed topology. The operation of the topology is verified by simulation as well as by experimentation.