DRV8320: how to measure the gate drive current?

Hi Hirata-san,

The best methods to measure the actual gate drive current are to:

1) Use a gate resistor in the gate drive path (i.e. 1 ohm) and measure the voltage across the gate resistor and divide by the resistor value

2) Remove the gate resistor in the path and solder a low-inductance wire in place of the gate resistor footprint, and use a current probe to measure the gate current across the wire. 

If there is no gate resistor in the gate drive path, it will not be easy to measure the gate current. 

Also, the IDRIVE setting is the peak gate current, but as a MOSFET gate is turned on/off, you'll see that gate current reduce lower back to 0A so the average gate current will be lower than the peak IDRIVE gate current setting.

Thanks,
Aaron