A HIGH-PERFORMANCE GATE BASE DRIVE USING A CURRENT SOURCE/

Unlike minority carrier semiconductor devices, e.g., MOSFET's that are voltage controlled, majority carrier elements, e.g., bipolar transist ors and GTO's, are current or charge controlled. To turn such a device on or off, a certain amount of charge has to be injected or extracted from the gate/base. If this is to be done quickly, very fast current rise and fall times are necessary. The gate drive discussed in this pa per achieves extremely fast turn-on times due to a current pulse appli ed to the gate. The gate/base current rise time is only a function of the turn-off time of a MOSFET, resulting in extremely fast rise times. The fundamental limits of the new drive are pointed out, including mi nimum off-time and maximum on-time. A loss analysis is also carried ou t. Experimental results verify the performance of the gate drive.