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http://dx.doi.org/10.6113/TKPE.2022.27.1.9

A New Gate Driver Technique for Voltage Balancing in Series-Connected Switching Devices  

Son, Myeong-Su (Sungshin Electric Co. Ltd. Research Institute)
Cho, Young-Hoon (Division of Electrical Engineering, Konkuk University)
Publication Information
The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics / v.27, no.1, 2022 , pp. 9-17 More about this Journal
Abstract
The series-connected semiconductor devices structure is one way to achieve a high voltage rating. However, a problem with voltage imbalance exists in which different voltages are applied to the series-connected switches. This paper proposed a new voltage balancing technique that controls the turn-off delay time of the switch by adding one bipolar junction transistor to the gate turn-off path. The validity of the proposed method is proved through simulation and experiment. The proposed active gate driver not only enables voltage balancing across a variety of current ranges but also has a greater voltage balancing performance compared with conventional RC snubber methods.
Keywords
Series-connected; SiC MOSFET; Active gate driver; RC snubber;
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