Infineon Gate Driver with Truly Differential Input

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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.

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Announcement of Winner (estimated): Apr 5 2019

Prize:Infineon EiceDRIVER™ 1EDN TDI EVM

 

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Video
Comment List
Anonymous
  • Dear

    thank you for the note.

    I hope all other roadtesters are able to debug the board thanks to your hint.

     

    Best regards

    Marco 

  • PWM signal coming out of the XMC 2 Go. The top line is the high side input signal, the lower line the low side's input.

    image

    High side:

    image

    Low side:

    image

     

    Dead time: around 110 ns.

     

    cfr. application guide Figure 17 PMW signals generated by the XMCTm 2Go with the code provided in the zip file:

    image

     

    Heads-up: at the first pulse that the firmware generates, there's a small time where both pulses are high.

    The reason is that the PWM activation (writing to the config registers) runs over multiple calls, and only at the last call the setup is stable.

    image

    As mentioned; first power the controller, then the 48 V.

  • For X5, I soldered a 2.5 mm² "standard house installation" wire bridge.

     

    image

  • - Just realised that in my hurry this morning, I made a mistake - where it's labelled X5, should be X7 in the schematic - X5 is the break for the ammeter shunt. That's what happens when I'm silly-busy.

     

    My interpretation was that JP1 was to be used for a differential probe to verify that ground shift between XMC_GND and GND was occurring so that one can be satisfied that they have a potential problem that the truly-differential drivers could be a solution to. This would give an easy point to monitor DC ground shifts.

     

    Probing X3/X4 is mainly just to verify the signals to the high-side/low-side driver generated from the XMC2GO, these signals are *only* referenced to XMC_GND which is isolated from the power GND so as to prove the fully differential inputs of the MOSFET drivers. Measuring to GND would probably not give a result because of this isolation (assuming you followed the instruction and provided an isolated USB power supply to satisfy the XMC2GO).

     

    Viewing X7 would be useful for understanding the output of the converter, whereas X2 would be used to understand the AC ground shifts. Because of this, I think there's a high probability that monitoring X5 and X2 simultaneously with X3 and X4 might be desirable and perhaps instructive (and tempting especially for those with 4-channel oscilloscopes to hand), but will require differential probes if one isn't going to lose the ability to induce DC ground shifts and tie every ground together. Otherwise, I suppose one could probe the output on X7 and then swap over to the input.

     

    The board does feature some LEDs to indicate that the "correct" signal is being generated (according to the manual) but being nothing but LEDs with series resistors, they don't possess the intelligence to know if the microcontroller is giving out a fixed "high" level or not, so while we can play around with the program to change the waveform, it may result in some casualties along the way. The manual also has some strange English in it ... so perhaps I will provide some feedback to the manufacturer soon.

     

    It makes me think that the design of the evaluation board may have jumped the gun slightly - maybe some modification is indeed required, because it may just be nice to understand what the MOSFET drivers' behaviour is like with various frequency/duty cycle signals without worrying about blowing up the MOSFETs. So perhaps removing the +48V supply to the MOSFETs would be a good idea for characterising the driver and getting everything going first ... although this will probably mean that the high-side driver won't work as expected as it relies on a ground established between the two MOSFETs.

     

    In the meantime, I found that some of my "no brand" switchable 60MHz oscilloscope probes (HP9060) seem to fit and click into the supplied connectors just fine, which was a happy coincidence. For probes with a thinner grounding collar, perhaps one can use some foil scrunched up to bridge the gap and get a good ground, rather than resort to drastic measures.

     

    - Gough

  • yes. ... and the guide also indicates to use isolated power for the USB input to the XMC.

    I’m going to use a telephone charge wallwart.

  • As you show, connecting the grounds together (via the 'scope) won't damage anything, just stop the XMC_GND moving away from GND. The XMC_GND is generated by the op amps, but they won't mind the short because of the 3.3k resistors on their outputs.

     

    My reading of JP1 is that they originally intended it as a quick way to get the PWM signals referenced exactly to GND - you can just put a link on it, rather than sit there trying to accurately adjust the op amps to give you exactly 0V. It's also handy for looking at the offset when there isn't a link.

     

    If you aren't using the actual board connectors (X3 and X4) then there's nothing to stop you looking at the PWM signals relative to GND rather than XMC_GND, is there?

     

    One thing that would need some care is ensuring that the PWM signals are running and sequence correctly before applying power to the MOSFETs.

  • Dear ,

     

    If we refer to the Infineon Application Note Addendum 3.1, the schematic is given although perhaps a little small and difficult to read. I have highlighted and noted the probe points and their respective grounds in the image below.

    image

    The manual states to use a differential probe on JP1, as that is trying to measure between XMC_GND and the power supply GND. Also important is the note that IC4 (XMC USB) power supply should be isolated from the ground from the power supply, again, because without this separation, it seems like ground shift would not be developed.

     

    However, on further examination of the schematic, this may not be sufficient. I do agree with you (as does the schematic) that X3 and X4 share a common ground, that of XMC_GND, while X2 and X5 share a common ground, that of the power supply GND which also appears at JP1. Thus it seems a few issues with the board can arise if you use non-isolated probes probing X2 or X5 and X3 or X4 at the same time, namely that XMC_GND and GND will be shorted together externally, which may mean no ground shift voltage from my understanding. Measurement between X2/X5 to X3/X4 is not particularly meaningful - with the XMC installed, I was getting about 4.5Mohm, without XMC I was getting a strange value. I suspect this is because we are measuring leakage of the ground through the LM324U.

     

    The sneaky thing is that underneath Table 4 which I quoted last time, is this sentence:

    "Some signals listed in the table are not referred to the same ground; if the user wants to measure them simultaneously, they must use an isolated-channel oscilloscope or differential probes."

     

    So no, some signals do not share a common ground ... which was wrong of me to assume based on seeing just the differential word in the table on JP1 alone.

     

    - Gough

  • Another note to my fellow roadtesters image

    When I installed Dave software (the eclipse version for the XMC2GO microntroller board), It didn't include the JLink software.

    You can get that from Segger (J-Link Software and Documentation pack for <your platform - I chose Window)>)

    Once it's installed, enter the path to the JLink software in Dave via Windows -> Preferences:

    image

     

    Then build the project, next Debug As ... Dave C/C++ application.

  •   wrote:

     

    There is a warning to use isolated probes when probing JP1, but for the others, you're probably safe as they should be sharing a common ground anyway. ...

     

    - Gough

    Can you check on your board (before using a dremmel on it image ). On mine, the ground of X3 and X4 are shared, and those of X2 and X7 (altough there are a few 0 ohm resistors between them - may be depending on what you do with the board later).

    There's 30 MOhm between the X3-X4 pair and X2-X7 pair ...

  • yes, you can access the signals from the underside.