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US 11,115,019 B2Granted
Dynamic short circuit protection
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsXi Lu, Chingchi Chen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Circuitry includes a pair of switches arranged in series, and a gate driver. The gate driver, responsive to a magnitude of current through one of the switches exceeding a threshold, discharges a gate of the one through a first resistor. The gate driver also, responsive to a voltage across a parasitic inductance of the switch becoming zero, discharges the gate through a second resistor but not the first resistor.
Claims11
Circuitry comprising:
- a pair of switches arranged in series;
- and
- a gate driver configured to
- responsive to a magnitude of current through one of the switches exceeding a threshold, discharge a gate of the one through a first resistor, and
- responsive to a voltage across a parasitic inductance of the one becoming zero, discharge the gate through a second resistor but not the first resistor,
- wherein the gate driver includes a comparator arranged to detect the voltage.
3 more elements
A test apparatus comprising:
- a pair of complementary-controlled insulated-gate bipolar transistors;
- an inductor in parallel with one of the insulated-gate bipolar transistors;
- and
- gate drive circuitry configured to, responsive to voltage across a parasitic inductance of the other of the insulated-gate bipolar transistors becoming zero during a short circuit event, disconnect a gate of the other of the insulated-gate bipolar transistors from a first resistor and connect the gate to a second resistor to alter a rate of discharge of the gate.
1 more element
A method for discharging a gate of one of a pair of series connected switches, comprising:
- responsive to a magnitude of current through the one of the switches exceeding a threshold, discharging by a controller a gate of the one through a first resistor, and
- responsive to a voltage across a parasitic inductance of the one becoming zero, discharging by the controller the gate through a second resistor but not the first resistor, wherein a resistance of the first resistor is less than a resistance of the second resistor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.