Advanced Gate Drive Unit With Closed-Loop diC/dt Control

This paper describes the design and the experimental investigation of a gate drive unit with closed-loop control of the collector current slope di(C)/dt for multichip insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). Compared to a pure resistive gate drive, the proposed di(C)/dt control offers the ability to adjust the collector current slope freely which helps to find an optimized relation between switching losses and secure operation of the freewheeling diode for every type of IGBT. Based on the description of IGBT's switching behavior, the design and the realization of the gate drive are presented. The test setup and the comparison of switching tests with and without the proposed di(C)/dt control are discussed.