Gate Driver FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions:

High Power Gate Drivers – What are the benefits?

TI’s wide range of gate drivers provide solutions for driving high power switch technologies such as MOSFET, IGBT, SiC, and GaN.  Our gate drivers come in the following configurations:

• Non Isolated Low Side Gate Drivers
• Non Isolated Half Bridge Gate Drivers
• Isolated Gate Drivers

TI’s gate drivers help maximize the potential of your design by reducing switching losses, increasing your system's resilience to noise and improving system density to enable an efficient, reliable design. In addition, our design resources, including videos, technical articles and reference designs, are available to support you through the design process.

How do I get started with TI’s gate drivers?

We provide a wide range of design resources, from starting-level content to help you get familiar with gate drivers, to more advanced material to assist you through the design and evaluation process as you design your system with our gate drivers.  Here, we have broken down some of our technical collateral:

Introductory Application Notes:

• Fundamentals of MOSFET and IGBT Gate Driver Circuits
• IGBT & SiC Gate Driver Fundamentals
• Troubleshooting gate drive circuits in automotive and industrial applications
• External Gate Resistor Design Guide for Gate Drivers
• Understanding Peak Source and Sink Current Parameters
• Key Parameters and Driving Requirements of GaN FETs
• Nomenclature, Types, and Structure of GaN Transistors
• How GaN Enables More Efficient and Reduced Form Factor Power Supplies
• How to Choose a Gate Driver for DC Motor Drives

General Gate Driver FAQs:

• How Should Ferrite Beads be Used and Selected for Gate Drive Circuits?
• How can I prevent false turn on of the Power FET during powerup?
• Can a single PWM signal drive a dual input driver?
• How can I use an ENable pin as a DISable and vise versa?
• The impact of changing FETs without modifying the gate drive circuit
• Which thermal pad dimension is correct (DGN0008D or DGN0008G)?
• What is the output resistance of a gate driver?
• How can I adapt my design when using pin-to-pin Gate Drivers with spec differences?
• Peak Current Considerations
• Low side and Half Bridge Gate Driver Schematic Review Template
• How Do I Choose the Best Non-isolated Gate Driver for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station Topologies?
• Which Battery Applications should I use Non-isolated Gate Drivers For?
• What are the advantages to using Totem Pole PFCs in power supply applications?
• Maximum Operating Frequency
• What happens when output overshoot or undershoot occurs and how to address it?
• What is split output and how to use it?

General Gate Driver Blogs:

• How to achieve higher system robustness in DC drives, part 1: negative voltage
• How to achieve higher system robustness in DC drives, part 2: interlock and deadtime
• How to achieve higher system robustness in DC drives, part 3: minimum input pulse

Gate Driver Trainings:

• Know your gate driver – Gate driver basics
• Gate Driver Select Considerations and Key Specs
• Implementation and Design Considerations of High Voltage Gate Drivers
• Top gate driver pitfalls and how to address them
• Low Side and H-Bridge Gate Driver Fundamentals
• How high-voltage isolation technology works
• Isolated gate driver training video series
• Gate Driver & Short-Circuit Protection of Silicon Carbide MOSFETs: Why & How?
• Programming our functional safety compliant gate driver
• Advanced gate drivers for HEV/EV traction inverters
• Top gate driver pitfalls and how to address them (Part 1)
• Top gate driver pitfalls and how to address them (Part 2) 

Non Isolated Low Side Drivers:

Application Notes:

• Benefits of a Compact, Powerful, and Robust Low-Side Gate Driver
• How to overcome negative voltage transients on low-side gate drivers' inputs
• Improving Efficiency of DC-DC Conversion through Layout
• Optimizing Gate Driver Layout for GaN based LiDAR Applications
• Low-side gate drivers with UVLO versus BJT totem-pole

FAQs:

• Can I parallel the outputs of a dual channel, low side gate driver to increase drive current strength?
• Can I use a Low Side driver as a High Side driver?
• How to drive a SiC FET or IGBT with a negative bias using a low side gate driver (bipolar drive)?
• Why should I replace discrete gate drivers with low-side driver ICs in automotive PTC modules?
• Managing power-supply noise with a 30-V gate driver
• What is the difference between the Low Side Drivers UCC27511A and UCC27511? Improved Negative Input Voltage Handling capability
• PCB Layout Considerations for Driving Power MOSFETs, IBGTs, SiC MOSFETs
• How to Calculate the Max Operating Frequency of a Low-side Gate Driver

TI Reference Designs:

• 1/8 Brick Isolated DC/DC Telecom Power Module Digital Control Reference Design – UCC27524 / UCC27624
• Two-Phase Interleaved Power Factor Correction Converter Reference Design with Power Metering – UCC27524 / UCC27624
• 360W Phase Shift Full Bridge Resonant LLC with High Side Low Side Driver Reference Design – UCC27524 / UCC27624
• Nanosecond Laser Driver Reference Design for GaN based LiDAR – LMG1020

Non Isolated Half Bridge Drivers:

Application Notes:

• Best Practices for Half-Bridge Gate Drivers for HEV/EV
• Bootstrap Circuitry Selection for Half-Bridge Configurations
• Get the Most Power from a Half-Bridge with High-Frequency Controllable Precision Dead Time
• Enhanced performance 100-V gate driver increases efficiency in advanced telecom power modules
• 100-V half-bridge gate driver spins your motor while handling negative voltage and protecting from cross-conduction
• Implementing a Battery Disconnect Switch Using 100-V Half-Bridge Gate Drivers
• Achieve Cooler Thermals and Less Power Loss of Your GaN Half-Bridge Design with the LMG1210
• Optimizing Efficiency Through Dead Time Control With the LMG1210 GaN Driver
• Optimizing multi-megahertz GaN driver design
• LMG1210 Optimizing GaN RF Power Amplifiers
• Implementing Bootstrap Overcharge Prevention in GaN Half-bridge Circuits

FAQs:

• • • How to Correctly Size the Bootstrap Capacitor for Half-Bridge Gate Drivers
    • Determining the Minimum On-Time of the Low-Side Transistor
    • How to calculate the discharge of the bootstrap capacitor
    • Can TI's non-isolated half bridge drivers be used in 100% duty cycle applications?
    • Why should I replace 3-phase bridge drivers with half-bridge drivers in automotive AC compressor modules?
    • Can I use LMG1210 with a bipolar supply?
    • Calculating Component and System Values for Designs Using Half Bridge Drivers
    • How to use a dual input half-bridge driver with a single PWM signal
    • Can I connect an external bootstrap diode in parallel with the internal diode?
    • Can I drive PMOS MOSFETs with TI's half-bridge gate drivers?
    • What is the difference of UCC27211A and UCC27211?
    • UCC27282 prevents damage from negative voltage spikes and protects against cross conduction
    • LM2105: How do I choose the best half-bridge gate driver for DC motor drive applications?
    • Half-Bridge Gate Driver Minimum Current Calculator
    • How to Calculate the Max Operating Frequency of a Half-bridge Gate Driver
    • What are the design considerations for the TPS28225’s 3-State PWM Input?
    • How to bias the high side of a half-bridge gate driver and why?
    • Gate-drivers-for-automotive-mobile-device-wireless-charging
    • Using a high-side or half-bridge gate driver as a low-side gate driver
    • Typical Half-Bridge PSpice Test Bench
    • Which gate drivers should I select for solar power microinverters?

TI Reference Designs:

• Automotive high voltage, high power motor driver reference design for HVAC compressor – UCC27712-Q1
• High Efficiency, High Power Density Active Clamp Flyback Adapter with SJ FET Reference Design - UCC27712
• Power stage reference design for <100-VIN DC/DC converters – UCC27282

Isolated Gate Drivers:

Application Notes:

• Impact of an isolated gate driver
• Isolation in solar power converters: Understanding the IEC62109-1 safety standard
• High-voltage reinforced isolation: Definitions and test methodologies
• How Capacitive Isolation Solves Key Challenges in AC Motor Drives
• Understanding the Short Circuit Protection for Silicon Carbide MOSFET
• Why is high UVLO important for safe IGBT and SiC MOSFET power switch operation?
• Performance of the Analog-to-Digital PWM Channel in Smart Gate Drivers

Standard Gate Driver FAQs:

Single Channel:

• How to select the most suitable gate driver for a certain application? 
• Boosting efficiency for your solar inverter designs
• Making a solar inverter more reliable than the sun
• Replace your aging optocoupler gate driver
• Can UCC21530 and UCC21540 DWK packages be used in 800V systems?
• Weight of UCC23XXX full reel of devices
• Common land pattern for both UCC23513 and TLP5754
• Logic input characteristics of UCC53XX family
• Do you have a version of UCC5304 with an ENABLE pin?
• Do you have a version of UCC53XX with an ENABLE pin?
• How do I implement interlock protection using the UCC5304 in half-bridge applications?
• How do I implement interlock protection using the UCC53XX family in half-bridge applications?

Dual Channel:

• What are the differences between the dual channel isolated gate drivers?
• What should I consider for input filtering design when using the UCC2122x/UCC2152x/UCC2154x dual channel gate drivers?
• What do I need to know about Bootstrap Overcharge when designing a driver bootstrap supply?
• What do I need to know about power up delay when designing a driver bootstrap supply?
• What do I need to know about dV/dt when designing a driver bootstrap supply?

Smart Gate Driver FAQs:

• How to select the most suitable gate driver for a certain application?
• How can we Increase DESAT Charging current for faster Short-circuit detection time in UCC217xx and ISO5x5x?
• How can we adjust the DESAT detection threshold in UCC217xx & ISO5x5x?
• What are the differences between UCC217xx and ISO5x5x?
• What are the differences between ISO5851, ISO5852S, ISO5451 and ISO5452?

Programmable Gate Driver FAQs:

• How to select the most suitable gate driver for a certain application?
• Getting started with UCC5880-Q1 without SPI

TI Reference Designs:

• Automotive Dual-Channel, SiC MOSFET Gate Driver Reference Design With Two-Level Turnoff Protection - UCC21530-Q1
• 20W, 100-425VDC, 85% Efficient, Multi-Output, Auxiliary Power Supply Reference Design – UCC28704
• SiC/IGBT isolated gate driver reference design with thermal diode and sensing FET - UCC21732
• Three-phase inverter reference design for 200-480 VAC drives with opto-emulated input gate drivers - UCC23513