NCP51820GAN2GEVB
NCP51820 HB GaN Driver
Evaluation Board
User's Manual
NCP51820 High−Speed, Half−Bridge, GaN
Driver Evaluation Board for Existing or
New PCB Designs
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
The NCP51820 HB GaN Driver Evaluation Board (EVB) is
intended to replace the driver and power MOSFETs used in existing
half−bridge or full−bridge power supplies. This EVB highlights the
performance, simplicity and minimal number of components required
to efficiently and reliably drive two gallium nitride power switches
used in a high−voltage, totem pole configuration. Intended
applications include off−line power converter topologies such as:
LLC, phase−shifted full−bridge, totem pole PFC, active clamp flyback
and forward, dual active−bridge, Phi−2 and high voltage synchronous
buck. This document describes the NCP51820 HB GaN Driver EVB
mated to a 400 V to 12.5 V LLC converter, as one commonly used
example from the topologies listed.
NCP51820 GaN Driver Description
The NCP51820 high−speed, gate driver is designed to meet the
stringent requirements of driving enhancement mode (E−mode), high
electron mobility transistor (HEMT) and gate injection transistor
(GIT) HEMT, gallium nitride (GaN) power switches in off−line,
half−bridge power topologies. The NCP51820 offers short and
matched propagation delays with advanced level shift technology
providing −3.5 V to +650 V (typical) common mode voltage range for
the high−side drive and −3.5 V to +3.5 V common mode voltage range
for the low−side drive. In addition, the device provides stable and
reliable operation when used in high dV/dt environments up to
200 V/ns. In order to fully protect the gates of the GaN power switches
against excessive voltage, both NCP51820 drive stages employ
separate, dedicated voltage regulators to accurately maintain the
gate−source drive signal amplitude. The circuit offers active clamping
of the driver's bias rails thus protecting against potential gate−source
over−voltage under various operating conditions.
The NCP51820 offers important protection functions such as
independent under−voltage lockout (UVLO), monitoring VDD bias
voltage, VDDH and VDDL driver bias and thermal shutdown based
on die junction temperature of the device. As shown in Figure 2, the
Schmitt trigger, EN, HIN and LIN inputs are internally pulled LOW to
assure the driver is always in a default 'OFF' state during initial
application of V
bias. Programmable dead−time control is available
DD
by the DT pin and can be configured to prevent or allow
cross−conduction.
© Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC, 2019
November, 2019 − Rev. 0
EVAL BOARD USER'S MANUAL
Figure 1. Evaluation Board Photo
1
www.onsemi.com
Publication Order Number:
EVBUM2697/D
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