Optimised Utilization of  IGBTs by Plug-and-Play Drivers

The extremely compact and high-performance IGBTs of the PrimePACK^TM series from Infineon Technologies AG enable scalable power converter system solutions optimised for various industrial drives, windmills, elevators, traction and auxiliary drives. SCALE-2 IGBT drivers make a perfect match for scaling power and controlled efficiency.

By Jan Thalheim, Olivier Garcia, Peter Wassmer, Sascha Pawel, CT-Concept Technologie AG, Biel, Switzerland

Thanks to SCALE-2 technology, the new 2SP0320 family comprises complete and extremely compact 2-channel IGBT drivers equipped with DC/DC converters, short-circuit protection, advanced active clamping and supply-voltage monitoring. Users need only mount them onto the corresponding IGBT module. The system can then be put into immediate operation with no further development or matching effort.

Prime(PACK) Time for SCALE-2

New Plug & Play driver for PrimePACK^TM modules plus a look into planar transformer gate drivers.

Two distinctively different gate driver solutions are presented that both have one mission: to make power designer’s life a little less complicated. Each driver relies on the highly integrated SCALE-2 chipset for fast and dependable signal transmission. The PrimePACK^TM driver family offers easy to use control for today’s power electronics systems – whereas planar transformer technology might break new ground in the near future.

By Sascha Pawel, Jan Thalheim, Olivier Garcia and Michael Reckhard

Power system designers are more and more under pressure to deliver highly optimized solutions in short design cycles. This situation can be considerably eased by dedicated gate drivers which are already fully customized to the IGBT module in question. CONCEPT’s Plug & Play driver series is successfully serving this steadily growing demand since 1999.

Smart Power Chip Tuning

Next Generation of Highly-Integrated IGBT Gate Drivers

The SCALE-2 chipset helps designers to optimize switching performance, reliability and scalability as well as application flexibility and time-to-market. It is specifically optimized to fit various IGBTs and applications ranging from 150 A to 3600 A and 1200 V to 6500 V but is also preconfigured to allow application-specific customization.

By Jan Thalheim and Heinz Rüedi

With the SCALE-2 chipset, CONCEPT introduces its next-generation technology platform for scalable IGBT and power MOSFET gate drivers introducing major advances in dynamic performance, accuracy, functionality, flexibility and time-to-market. The design fully employs the methodology of the SCALE drivers that are used in large item numbers and have been tried and tested within a great diversity of applications. The chipset includes several variants of secondary-side Intelligent Gate Driver (IGD) ASICs and a primary-side dual channel Logic-to-Driver Interface (LDI) ASIC and was implemented in an extended-drain double-well dual gate oxide submicron CMOS foundry process. This combination of state-of-the-art analog capabilities with moderate digital feature size yields an optimum cost-performance ratio.

_{PrimePACK is a trademark of Infineon Technologies AG, Munich}