Low voltage drop cascaded synchronous bootstrap supply circuit
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A cascaded synchronous bootstrap gate driver circuit for driving a plurality of power transistors of a multi-level converter, comprising:
- a plurality of cascaded drive control loops, each loop including a gallium nitride (GaN) transistor having a gate terminal connected to a gate terminal of one of the plurality of power transistors, a bootstrap capacitor charged by a current passing through the GaN transistor, and a drive stage connected to the bootstrap capacitor and configured to selectively couple and decouple an adjacent drive control loop,wherein each drive control loop is configured to selectively drive a respective one of the plurality of power transistors of the multi-level converter.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A cascaded synchronous bootstrap supply circuit with reduced voltage drop between the cascaded bootstrap capacitors by replacing bootstrap diodes with gallium nitride (GaN) transistors. GaN transistors have a much lower forward voltage drop than diodes, thus providing a cascaded gate driver bootstrap supply circuit with a reduced drop in bootstrap capacitor voltage, which is particularly important as the number of levels increases.
-
Citations
19 Claims
-
1. A cascaded synchronous bootstrap gate driver circuit for driving a plurality of power transistors of a multi-level converter, comprising:
-
a plurality of cascaded drive control loops, each loop including a gallium nitride (GaN) transistor having a gate terminal connected to a gate terminal of one of the plurality of power transistors, a bootstrap capacitor charged by a current passing through the GaN transistor, and a drive stage connected to the bootstrap capacitor and configured to selectively couple and decouple an adjacent drive control loop, wherein each drive control loop is configured to selectively drive a respective one of the plurality of power transistors of the multi-level converter. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
Specification