GATE DRIVE CIRCUITS

Driver circuits are most commonly used to amplify

signals from controllers or microcontrollers in order
to control power switches in semiconductor devices.
Driver circuits often take on additional functions
which include isolating the control circuit and the
power circuit, detecting malfunctions, storing and
reporting failures to the control system, serving as a
precaution against failure, analyzing sensor signals,
and creating auxiliary voltages.
 Functionality of Gate/Base Drive Circuits
• Turn power switch from off-state to on-state
• Turn power switch from on-state to off-state
• Control power switch to protect it when over voltages or over
currents are sensed
• Drive circuit amplifies control signals to levels required to drive
power switch
• Provide electrical isolation when needed between power switch
and logic level signal processing/control circuits
 Drive Circuit Design Considerations
• Drive circuit topologies
Output signal polarity - unipolar or bipolar
AC or DC coupled
Connected in shunt or series with power switch

• Output current magnitude

Large Ion shortens turn-on time but lengthens turn-off delay time
Large Ioff shortens turn-off time but lengthens turn-on delay time
 Drive Circuit Design Considerations
Provisions for power switch protection
Overcurrents
Blanking times for bridge circuit drives
• Waveshaping to improve switch performance
Controlled diB/dt for BJT turn-off
Anti-saturation diodes for BJT drives
Speedup capacitors
Front-porch/backporch currents
Component layout to minimize stray inductance and shielding from
switching noise
 Bipolar Junction Transistor Drive Circuits
• The switch-on time can be reduced by allowing the base current of the
BJT to reach its peak value IB1 during switch-on resulting low forced
beta value at the beginning.
• After switching-on, the beta value can be increased to sufficiently high
value so that it can maintain the BJT in the quasi-saturation region.
• The switch-off time can be reduced by reversing the base current.
Increasing the value of reverse base current will decrease the storage
time.
A TYPICAL BASE DRIVE SIGNAL

BASE CURRENT PEAKING FOR QUICKER TURN ON & OFF

• The common methods used for optimizing the base drive
for a transistor are listed as follows.
• Switch-on control.
• Switch-off control.
• Proportional base control.
• Anti-saturation control.
Switch-on control
Switch-off control
 Proportional base control.

If the collector current changes due to change in load,

the base drive current is changed in proportion to collector current.
 Anti-saturation control
• If the transistor is driven into saturation, the storage
time, which is proportional to the base current,
increases and reduces the switching speed.
• The storage time can be reduced by operating the
transistor in soft saturation instead of deep
saturation
DRIVING MOSFETS/IGBTS
DRIVER CIRCUITS FOR MOSFET
CMOS &TTL
FASTER SWITCHING
Driver IC 2110
 Need for Electrical Isolation of Drive Circuits
• These pulses cannot be directly connected to the gates of transistor
without isolation circuit or interface circuit between the logic voltage
logic pulse and high voltage power MOSFET.
• The importance of gating a MOSFET between its gate and source
instead of apply the gate voltage directly between the gate and the
ground is shown in Fig. where there is a load (RL) connecting between
the source and ground of the circuit. In the circuit, the effective gate-to
source voltage (VGS) is equal to
Gate voltage between gate and ground

There are basic ways of floating or isolating the control

or gate pulse with respect to ground. They are pulse
transformer method and optocoupler isolation method.
We shall discuss these methods.
Pulse Transformer Method
Optocoupler ICs
POWER SUPPLY
OPTOCOUPLER - 4N35
OPTOCOUPLER AND DRIVER
PIC18F450 MICROCONTROLLER
Hardware implementation of the Gating circuit

Gate circuit

03/06/2024 26
Hardware implementation of the Gating circuit

PIC micro Opto-coupler Power circuit

controller circuit circuit
 SNUBBER CIRCUITS
Snubbers are voltage suppressing
circuits used to suppress voltage
spikes caused by a circuit’s inductance
when a switch (typically a transistor,
but can be mechanical type) opens.
Among many different kinds of
snubbers, the resistor-capacitor (RC)
snubber is most popular, where a
capacitor and resistor connected in
series is across the switch, or
transistor.