In automotive and industrial applications facing harsh environmental conditions such as high temperature, vibration and noise, robust gate drivers are needed to overcome the challenges imposed by the harsh application environment. This article will show you the isolated gate driver from Silicon Labs to understand how it will meet the power requirements of automotive and industrial applications.
New Isolated Gate Driver Supports New Material Technology
Power converter designers in the automotive, industrial, and renewable energy markets are managing dynamic environments through emerging energy efficiency standards and new technology options, while meeting the continuous requirements for safety and power, such as the adoption of emerging technologies like silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), and fast Si FETs. Therefore, new isolated gate drivers must be equipped to meet the specification requirements required by power engineers.
In the automotive and industrial application environment, the power requirements are more stringent, testing the robustness of the gate driver. In addition to providing high performance, it must also have a wide input voltage range, lower latency, higher noise immunity, and rapid switching capability.
Excellent Product Features Meet Energy Efficiency Standards and Dimension Requirements
The isolated gate driver products introduced by Silicon Labs offer ultra-fast propagation delays for better timing margins, rock-solid operation over temperature and time, and unparalleled size and cost benefits. Isolation ratings of 1, 2.5, 3.75, and 5.0 kV are available. Driver-to-driver withstand voltage is ±1500 VDC and drivers can be grounded to the same or separate grounds or connected to a floating voltage. The isolated gate driver technology of Silicon Labs can be used in a variety of power applications, including power supplies for data centers, micro inverters for solar power, traction inverters in the automotive market, and industrial power supplies.
Silicon Labs recently introduced a new Si823Hx/825xx isolated gate driver. The new product integrates faster and safer switching, low latency and high noise immunity capabilities, and can be placed closer to power transistors to realize compact printed circuit board (PCB) design. The new advances made by these gate drivers can help power converter designers to meet or even exceed increasing energy efficiency standards and size requirements while supporting the use of emerging technologies such as SiC, GaN, and fast Si FETs.
Providing Excellent Performance and a Strong Level of Isolation
The Si823Hx/Si825xx family of isolated gate drivers are robust gate drivers for Silicon, GaN, or SiC based power converter systems such as SMPS or inverters. The family has upgraded functions such as a high voltage input (logic side) VDD supply pin that supports up to 20 V. It has a robust 30 V driver VDD capability, low latency for tighter loop control, high Common Mode Transient Immunity (CMTI) of 125 kV/µs, -5 V voltage withstand on output pins, and over-temperature protection. These also feature a driver boost stage which provides an increased current drive capability during the Miller plateau region for faster turn-on times.
Based on Silicon Labs’ proprietary CMOS capacitive isolation technology, Si823Hx/Si825xx isolated gate drivers deliver superior performance in terms of robust isolation ratings to enable driving state-of-the-art GaN or SiC FETs for maximizing system efficiency while ensuring safety with features such as Under Voltage Lockout (UVLO) protection and dead-time programmability.
Compact Package Reduces System Size and Cost
The differentiated features of the Si823Hx/825xx family are specifically configured to meet the requirements of designers working in challenging power environments. The Silicon Labs’ product family offers a unique boost device to provide a higher source current for faster FET turn-on. Symmetric 4A sink/source capabilities translate into nearly double the source current of previous generations of drivers to help reduce switching losses. The new isolated gate drivers cut the latency in half with a maximum propagation delay of 30ns that reduces the feedback loop delay for higher system efficiency. These drivers also provide transient noise immunity improvement, thus ensuring reliable operation in an inherently noisy environment. The input voltage range (VDDIH) is also extended from 4.5 to 20 V, which allows for a direct interface with the power rail of typical analog controllers.
To meet space constraints, the Si823Hx/Si825xx gate drivers offer several package options. These compact drivers are in an 8-pin package instead of a similar 16-pin package, thus reducing system size and cost. Other newly upgraded features include over-temperature protection, which will trigger the driver to turn off automatically when the temperature is too high. Additional safety features include dead time, overlap protection, and input noise de-glitch to maximize safety.
Conclusion
With the introduction of new power technologies, new gate drivers will also be matched to maximize efficiency. The isolated gate drivers introduced by Silicon Labs have excellent product characteristics, can meet the stringent automotive and industrial application requirements, and will be the best choice for the development of new power products.
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