Experimental comparison of voltage and current source gate drivers for IGBTs

Abstract

In this work, a current source gate driver based on a switched current mirror topology for an insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is presented. The influence of different gate current levels for the turn-on and turn-off events is investigated. Experimental measurements are conducted using a double pulse test bench. The resulting switching trajectories as well as switching losses are compared to a standard push-pull driver stage using a variation of different gate resistors. It is found that the measured switching waveforms of the standard push-pull gate driver and the current source gate driver show equal performance. Furthermore, equal switching losses are found for equal overvoltage peaks and overcurrent peaks using both driver topologies.