Analysis of a Switching Event and its Impact on Gate Drive in Gallium-Nitride Based Bi-Directional Switches

Abstract

Application of wide band gap (WBG) devices in power electronics converters enable high frequency and high-speed operation, together with reduced conduction losses. Gallium-Nitride (GaN) devices are more promising as they offer low chip area, and stable variation of channel resistance. Such devices can be employed in current source inverters (CSI) where two of them need to be connected in anti-series to make a reverse voltage blocking (RVB) switch. RVB switches are not only important in CSIs, but also find their applications in matrix converters, high voltage DC circuit breakers and T-type voltage source inverters. This paper discusses a switching event comprising of turn-on and turn-off phenomenon in RVB switch. Since the impact of layout parasitic onto gate drivers has been a common issue for GaN based converters, the paper presented a switching events, and discussed all the contributors which help or worsen the driving of bi-directional switches.