Infineon launches new EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN71x6G HS 200 V single-channel gate driver family

      Minimizing investment in R&D and cost, as well as ensuring robust and efficient operation of medium-voltage gallium nitride (GaN) switches, are several core requirements for modern power electronic system design. Infineon Technologies AG, in line with its strategically engineered GaN product portfolio, continues to strengthen full system solutions with the launch of the EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN71x6G HS 200V single-channel gate driver IC family. The new family of products not only enhances the performance of CoolGaN™ Schottky Gate (SG) HEMTs, but is also compatible with other GaN HEMTs and silicon MOSFETs. This gate driver family can be widely used in DC-DC converters, motor drivers, telecommunications, servers, robots, drones, power tools, and class-D audio amplifiers.

     The 1EDN71x6G family features selectable pull-up and pull-down drive strengths, enabling waveform and switching speed optimization without gate resistors, resulting in smaller power stage layouts and fewer BOM components. The driver product with the strongest driving capability and the fastest switching speed (1EDN7116G) is suitable for multi-parallel half-bridge combination circuits. The driver product with the smallest drive capability and slowest switching speed (1EDN7146G) can be used in applications requiring slow dv/dt changes, such as motor drives or small die GaN (high RDS(on), low Qg) HEMTs. Not only that, but each product has a different blanking time proportional to the minimum recommended dead time, minimum pulse width and propagation delay.

     The True Differential Logic Input (TDI) feature not only eliminates the risk of false triggering due to ground bounce voltages in low-side applications, but also enables the 1EDN71x6G to handle high-side applications. In addition, all series use active Miller clamp technology, which has a very strong pull-down function to avoid inductive turn-on. This provides greater robustness against glitch voltages in the gate driver loop, especially when driving transistors with high Miller ratios.

     In addition, the 1EDN71x6G provides an active bootstrap clamp to avoid overcharging the bootstrap capacitor during dead time. This enables bootstrap supply voltage regulation without the need for additional regulation circuitry to protect the gates of the high-side transistors. If desired (eg, where the PCB layout cannot be fully optimized), the product family also offers a programmable charge pump with an adjustable negative turn-off supply for additional Miller-induced turn-on immunity.