Short-Circuit Protection for GaN Power Devices with Integrated Current Limiter and Commercial Gate Driver

Abstract

A successful short-circuit protection technology for GaN power devices paired with a commercial gate driver is demonstrated. The GaN power devices have an integrated Short-Circuit Current Limiter (SCCL) to achieve a sufficiently long short-circuit withstanding time (SCWT). The SCWT is tuned from 0.3 µs to 2 µs (a remarkable 7x increase) with a relatively small penalty in on-resistance. The gate-driver has desaturation detection (DESAT) and soft shutdown circuitry to achieve a fast protection response of 800 ns with high noise immunity greater than 100 V/ns. The combination of GaN power devices with SCCL and a commercial gate driver with fast DESAT and high noise immunity allows short-circuit protection and fail-safe operation of GaN power electronics for additional robustness in motor drive applications.