High-performance active gate drive for high-power IGBT's

This paper deals with an active gate drive (AGD) technology for high-power insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT's). it is based on an optimal comb ination of several requirements necessary for good switching performance un der hard-switching conditions. The scheme specifically combines together th e slow drive requirements; for low noise and switching stress and the fast drive requirements for high-speed switching and low switching energy loss. The gate drive can also effectively dampen oscillations during low-current turn-on transient in the IGBT. This paper looks at the conflicting requirem ents of the conventional gate drive circuit design and demonstrates using e xperimental results that the proposed three-stage AGD technique can be an e ffective solution.