Short current protection circuit in EV application
“Short current protection circuit in EV application based on GaN transistors”
Dima Novo, VisIC VP of Power Electronics, had presented at the Charged Virtual Conference
Apr 19, 2021, 1:00 pm EDT
Ensuring the reliability and safety of electric vehicles is the highest priority of any EV manufacturer. Using Wide Band Gap semiconductors such as GaN gives certain advantages of fast switching. However, short current protection circuit must exhibit nanosecond level detection time in order not to exceed the safe switching operation area of the device and must ensure smooth turn-off. In this presentation, an original derivative pulsed-current sensor in conjunction with the fast response 2-stage shutdown circuit is evaluated for various short-circuits. The protection circuit is developed and tested with the half-bridge converter evaluation board for 650 V / 80A GaN devices in various short circuit conditions.