Broadcom Inc
In order to enable an easier transition toward SiC technology, Broadcom® is expanding its Isolated Gate Driver portfolio, accompanied with the appropriate evaluation boards for 1200V SiC MOSFETs. The new board coming from this series is the Isolated Gate Driver evaluation board made for discrete TO-247.
The main benefits of the SiC MOSFET are the improved efficiency and power density. Additionally, for low-power applications, the price is a very important driving factor. The aim of this evaluation board is to demonstrate that such high efficient but also cost-optimized design can be realized with the simple gate driver design.
The discrete package has the disadvantage of the high stray inductance. This becomes even more critical when such a package is used for the fast switching SiC MOSFET. PCB layout design needs to be carefully done in order to squeeze every possible watt out of the converter and minimize the EMI noise. An additional challenge is the precise switching loss characterization, and this requires a high-bandwidth measurement of the commutating current.
Evaluation board EB1200-3161 features Broadcom’s dual output isolated gate drive optocouplers ACFL-3161, used to drive SiC MOSFETs in a discrete TO-247 package. The board features an integrated capacitor DC Bus with the optimized layout that minimizes the commutation loop inductance. The high-bandwidth current switch current measurement is implemented and it is realized as the low inductive planar Shunt resistor.
