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Inverter project gate driver suggestions?

Gauthier Mervillie
Prodigy 100 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: UCC21520, UCC23513, UCC27524A

Hello everybody,

I'm a student and I'm considering an IC drive from TI. I'm building an inverter for my master thesis and I need a specific gatedrive. I'll be using gate driver transformers to secure my drive, but I don't know wich drive is applicable on this concept. For you I added the principle below from the supplier of my gate driver transformers:

www.coilcraft.com/.../gate_drive_transformer.cfm  (see figure 2)

Some other specs from my inverter I'm building:

3 phase DC/AC inverter
phase voltage: 400V
switch freq:  -16kHz

I max: 8A


In the end I want to make a multi-inverter based on the principle above, but first I want to make it work in single level configuration. Hope you can give me some advice. When you need more information, you can always ask me.

Thanks in advance!

  • 0
    TI__Genius 13445 points

    Hi Gauthier,

    Welcome to E2E, my name is Mamadou Diallo, I am an applications engineer in the High Power Drivers group.

    Have you considered using an isolated driver like UCC21520 or UCC23513 instead? These device eliminate the need for the transformer and the leakage inductance often associated with gate drive transformer while providing reinforced isolation for the phase inverter.

    We have several 3-phase inverters reference designs as a starting point that may find helpful:

    You may also find more on our reference designs library:

    Or are you restricted to a gate drive transformer solution?

    If so, you may also use a dual low-side gate driver like UCC27524A in a double-ended transformer-coupled gate drive as described by section 7.2 of the link below:

    The link you shared with us referenced couple our app notes that I have attached below as well.

    Please let us know if you additional questions or press the green button if this addressed your inquiry.

    Regards,

    -Mamadou

  • 0 in reply to Mamadou Diallo
    Prodigy 100 points

    Hello Mamadou

    Thank you for all the information, it's highly appreciated! I just had a conversation with my mentor and we both agreed that the UCC21520 or UCC23513 will be better alternatives. At this moment we work with a bootstrap configuration so the implementation will be easy.

    The only question we still have is the following: which one of the two suggested should we choose if we want to upgrade our 3 phase inverter to a 3 phase multilevel inverter? We would like to have a gate driver which can be used for both a simple inverter and a 3 level multilevel inverter. If this is not possible we will buy a gate driver for the 3 phase inverter and the 3 phase multilevel inverter seperatly. Again thanks for all the help!

    Regards

    Gauthier

  • 0 in reply to Gauthier Mervillie
    TI__Genius 13445 points
    Hi Gauthier,

    For a multilevel inverter, it is important to carefully choose a driver with low pulse width distortion, good delay matching and excellent part-to-part prop delay to ensure simultaneous turn-on and turn-off of the complementary power switches on each leg of the inverter. It is important to account for these parameters over supply range, temperature and other variations. The complementary power switches must be on/off with minimal delay to prevent shoot-through.
    UCC21520 has better prop delay 30ns(max), 5ns max delay matching and 10ns pulse width distortion which may be more convenient for this particular application.
    In addition to that, it is important to optimize your layout to minimize the effects of parasitic inductance in the gate drive circuit and ensuring a signal path of each complementary switches of the each leg to be as symmetric as possible.

    Please let us know if you have further questions or press the green button if this addressed your questions.

    Thanks.

    Regards,

    -Mamadou