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Why are my gate drivers breaking

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Bakez

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I have an single phase inverter (or H-Bridge) with Silicon Carbide MOSFETs

The gate drivers have two DCDC power supplies in order to create a -2V to 20V gate voltage swing (one for the negative and one for the positive).

I am running all the gate drivers from one supply. When I turn on the inverter with a low input voltage, the gate drivers work fine, however as I increase the input voltage the gate drivers start to draw more and more current from the power supply and also the voltage the power supply outputs drop dramatically. Does anyone know why this is?

Is it because my gate driver is heating up, or needing to draw more power when the MOSFETs are being switched at a higher voltage or other reasons?

I think maybe the fact I have absolutely no input filter capacitor on any of the 8 DCDC converters that I am supplying out of one power supply could be a reason too.
 

Post your full circuit diagram which will help to find the problem
 

It is difficult to suggest solutions without taking a look at the circuit diagram.

At the output of the DC-DC converters, you should connect filter capacitors. Which DC-DC converter(s) are you using?

Does the gate driver drive the MOSFET with up to 20V? That might be a problem. What is the VGS(max) of the MOSFET(s) you are using? If it is about 20V (or lower), reduce the DC-DC converter supply voltage to 12V or 15V.

A resistor (1k is good) between the gate and source of each MOSFET should be used.
 

The waveform through the mosfets is worth checking.

If the waveform is at all ramp shaped, that means it is spending a greater portion of the cycle in resistive (linear) mode, and is dissipating watts as heat.

The greater output you ask from it, the more heat it generates.
 

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