New Industry Products

Half-Bridge Reference Design for Evaluating Si, SiC and GaN Power Devices

December 22, 2017 by Paul Shepard

RECOM's universal half-bridge reference design can be used to evaluate high power IGBT, 1st and 2nd gen. SiC, GaN and MOSFET Cascode switching transistors. It was specially designed for semiconductors in TO247 and TO247-4L (Kelvin contact) packages.

Four sets of different dc-dc converters are provided to generate the appropriate isolated driver voltages for the different transistor types.

The Half-Bridge Gate-Drive Power Supply Reference Design (RD) consists of a half-bridge suitable for voltages up to 1kV and a fully-isolated driver stage with isolated power supplies for the low-side and the high-side switching transistors.

It is designed for use with single gate/drive supply voltages as low as +4V as well as dual gate drive supply voltages as high as +20V / -5V (30V max) with no maximum duty cycle limitations. Two R12P22005D, R12P21503D, R12P21509D and R12P06S dc-dc modules each are included in the R-REF01-HB design kit.

(click on table to enlarge)

The signal ground is galvanically-isolated from the power ground and can be connected to any potential, as long as it is less than 2.5kV with respect to the power potential (high-side and low-side). The limiting element is the gate driver IC specification.

Features:

  • Optimized for very high switching speed
  • 5kV continuous input to output isolation
  • High gate-drive currents (up to 10A source and sink)
  • The RD is fitted with a SI8273 gate driver, but can be used with any pin-compatible gate driver with a PWM input (SI8274) or for gate driver ICs with reinforced isolation, for example the UCC21520 (dual pinout layout on PCB).

This RD can easily be configured for the following topologies:

  • LLC half-bridge
  • Asymmetric duty cycle half-bridge (forward and flyback)
  • Active clamp half-bridge (forward and flyback)
  • Full-bridge / phase-shifted full-bridge
  • 3-phase B6 bridge
  • NPC B6 bridge (additional driving circuit for NPC is required)
  • Double pulse test
  • Synchronous boost converter
  • Synchronous buck converter

This reference design board is a PCB that is a complete solution to be used as a launching pad to get your design up and working fast. It will have fewer options, but it will enable you to quickly check that the RECOM product functions as expected in your application.