Infineon Gate Driver with Truly Differential Input

Table of contents

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About

Summary

This EVM demonstrates the EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI family of single-channel low-side gate drivers with truly differential inputs (TDI) used as low side drive to prevent false triggering caused by ground bouncing and high side drive. (DC-DC buck converter with TDI gate driver, half bridge board)

 

Detail

The Infineon EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI, a new family of single-channel low-side gate drivers with truly differential inputs (TDI).

 

This evaluation board is intended to show the strengths of the EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI (1EDN8550B or 1EDN7550B), family of single-channel low-side gate drivers with innovative truly differential inputs (TDI) concept. The TDI concept is intended to overcome driving issues when DC offset (DC GND shift) or AC oscillation(AC GND shift) are existing between the driver and the microcontroller ground potentials. Common situations characterized by DC and AC GND shifts are, respectively, the driving as high-side driver and the driving in noisy environments with significant stray inductance on the ground path.

 

This evaluation board allows to evaluate the proper 1EDN TDI driving with AC and DC ground shifts generated on purpose. The half-bridge design using the 1EDN TDI as high-side driver is intended to provide further evidence of its DC ground shift robustness.

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Features

  • 48V half-bridge buck converter tested up to 60W
  • Integrated section to generate and regulate the DC GND shift
  • Possibility to easily regulate the AC GND shift
  • Possibility to compare the 1EDN TDI and standard low side driver in GND shift situation

 

Kit Contents

 

Sponsor's Goals of the RoadTest

  • New fields of applications
  • Feedback on the usability of the board and device
  • Feedback on the board and device
  • Suggestions on improvements

 

Additional Information

Product Brief, Datasheets, and Application Notes

Important Dates

Enrollment Begin: Feb 28 2018

Enrollment Ends: Mar 29 2019

RoadTesters Selected: April 11 2019

Product Shipped: Apr 15 2019

RoadTesting Begins: April 22 2019

Reminder/Update Email: May 22 2019*

Submit Reviews By: June 22 2019*

*The element14 RoadTest Staff will send this reminder/update email.

**If a RoadTester is unable to meet the deadline, please notify the RoadTest Program Lead, , as soon as possible before the deadline.

RoadTesters

Terms and Conditions

RoadTest

Infineon EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI EVM

Terms and Conditions

These are the terms and conditions which govern the Infineon EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI EVM contest. This Contest requires participants to submit an application indicating their previous experience with this type of equipment/component, information on what they would do to test the equipment/component, and the applicant’s desire to post a thorough review of their experience with images, photos, or other supplemental materials. Participants will be required to meet the Conditions for Participation.  The winners of this RoadTest will receive the item(s) listed below. RoadTest Reviews are due no later than 60 days after the receipt of the item(s). No other prizes are offered.

The Principal terms of the Competition:

The following words and phrases are used in these terms and conditions and have the meanings given to them below.

(RoadTest or Contest)

Key dates:

Applications Close: midnight (GMT) on March 29 2019

Announcement of Winner (estimated): Apr 5 2019

Prize:Infineon EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI EVM

 

Competition Site: https://www.element14.com/community/groups/roadtest?ICID=menubar_resources_roadtest

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Organiser: Premier Farnell plc (registered in England and Wales under company number 876412) whose registered office is at Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds, UK

Conditions for Qualification: in addition to meeting the requirements of these terms, all persons applying to take part in the Contest (each one an Applicant) must:

· Provide a RoadTest application describing what he/she would do if awarded the Prize including similar previous projects, product experience and qualifications

Terms: these terms and conditions which govern the Competition and to which the Organiser reserves the right to make changes from time to time and the latest version of these Terms from time to time will be posted to the Site.

  1. Eligibility
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Video
Comment List
Anonymous
  • I'm preparing for the alternative low side driver. It's ordered but I haven't received it yet.

    I removed the LS circuit and cleaned up the solder from the alternative footprints on the bottom of the PCB.

    I also moved the original LS driver to the high side, because the HS one died in one of the tests. I ordered some new of those too.

    The second part of the test (in particular the AC ground noise test) may destroy the power FETs. Unfortunately, they are out of stock around the world (all Infineon FETs with that footprint).

     

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  • Hello roadtester,

     

    the differential probe is suggested for JP1 just for the way how the measuring point JP1 looks like. But you are right, you can measure JP1, X3 and X4 with standard probes with the probe ground connected to XMC_GND.

     

    Regarding the PWM scheme, yes, you can play with the software checking the 2 PWM signals without applying the 48V. In this case in fact, the 48V-12V on board connector will not generate the supply for the drivers and you are not applying any signal to the MOSFETs (safe situation).

    Actually this is the way how we also program the software.

     

    For the leds, you are right. One driver could be broken giving a constant high output and the led would be ON.

    Actually the purpose of the leds is different; it is to check that both drivers are supplied and then you have some signals on the driver output.

    Anyway I just checked the application note and the wording in Table 3 could confuse; it is saying that LED3 and LED4 ensure that the driver works properly, instead is only ensuring that they are supplied.

    We will fix this point, thanks lot for pointing out this.

     

    Please note that the board has the main purpose to introduce the driver since it is bringing in an innovative concept into the market (1EDN-TDI is the first driver on the market based on differential inputs).

    It is not intended to be a reference design, just an evaluation board to let users becoming familiar with the potentialities of the drivers.

    After that, he (and you) will be really able to find a lot of end-application for this products. It can really go everywhere starting from wireless charging to motor drive applications.

     

    We are just waiting for your ideas and your feedbacks.

     

    Best regards,

    Carmen

  • If any of your probes fit but you have available a solder iron, other 2 solutions are possible:

     

    1) Solder 2 small cables on the measuring point pads and connect the oscilloscope probe to them using the alligator clips coming with the probe.

     

     

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    For recognizing the exacts pads, you will need a look to the layout picture, a multimeter, some datasheet opened on the components pin-out and finally good eyes.

    If still not enough, please let me know.

     

    2) If your oscilloscope probe is too thin, try to put some solder around the edge of the probe to increase its diameter and fits properly in the on board connector.

     

    Best regards,

    Marco

  • Hello roadtesters,

     

    some example of probes fitting to the on board connector:

     

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    Tetronix P6139B with spring adapter:

    image

     

    Best regards,

    Marco

  • I've adapted the firmware so that you can control the duty cycle of the bridge input with a potentiometer: Custom Firmware to Control Duty Cycle

     

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  • A capture of the AC ground shift, in the standard configuration (ideal situation)

     

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  • A capture of the bridge output and the high side input signal.

    The HS input base shows a little above ground. That's because I measured it referenced to the output ground. The offset is the slight DC ground shift I injected.

     

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  • Capacitor C7 is bridged on the underside of my PCB. It looks like a deliberate bridge, not a manufacturing issue.

    Is that on your boards too, fellow testers?

     

    image

     

    Edit: I was asking because my board didn't work when starting it up - I didn't get signal from the gate drivers outputs.

    I then checked rails and found that the lower driver was not getting supply.

    I then measured and found a short between the IC's  VCC and GND. I first thought that I killed the IC while dremmeling, or that bypass cap C2 was toast.

    On the schematic I saw that C7 (do not populate) is in parallel and was bridged on my PCB.

    I now removed the bridge and the board behaves like it should.

  • Dear Roadtesters,

     

    I'm happy to see that you received the board and started working on it.

     

    I briefly explain the role of the different connectors, if it was not so clear so far:

     

    X1: 48V input power (its ground is called GND in the schematic and is shared with the output).

    X2: checks the voltage difference between low-side gate driver ground and GND (the 0 ohm jumpers J1, J2, J3, J4, J5, J6 close to it can be mounted or de-mounted in order to create different configurations which give different parasitic inductances and therefore different AC ground shift; the evaluation board is intended to prove also the robustness of the TDI at this conditions ).

    X3 and X4 respectively check the PWM low-side and PWM high-side signals; their grounds are shared with the XMC ground which is called XMC_GND.

    X5: current measurement wire; if not mounted the output voltage will not reach the output connector.

    X7: checks the voltage at the output of the half-bridge structure; more precisely checks the switching node which is connected to the drain of the low-side MOSFET and to the source of the high-side one.

    JP1: used to check the DC ground shift which is developed between XMC_GND and GND. This can be regulated using the knob. The robustness to this shift is another feature of the TDI. If you want to evaluate the AC shift robustness independently from the DC one you can place a jumper on JP1.

     

    A differential probe should be used whenever you want to test the voltage between two nodes which are not referred to the system ground (in this case GND). Probably the sentence printed on the board "Use differential probe for JP1!" may be misleading, in fact you should use it if you want to test the voltage between the XMC_GND and another node of the circuit which is not GND.

     

    Best regards

    Marco

  • Dear

    for sure you can probe from underneath.

    Here you can find a possible solution for measuring the PWM low side signal. You could do the same with other accessible nodes.

      image

    Best regards

    Marco