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US 12,206,392 B2Granted
Transient overvoltage active clamping for semiconductor power switches
AssigneeRockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
InventorBora Novakovic
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system may include a switch, a gate driver, and a signal conditioner. The switch may couple to a load. The gate driver may generate one or more gating signals to control one or more operations of the switch. The signal conditioner may receive an input signal associated with the switch and generate a modification signal that may modify the one or more gating signals based on the input signal. The modified gating signal may be used to reduce an amplitude of a voltage transient received by the switch to below a voltage threshold.
Claims20
A system, comprising:
- a switch configured to couple to a load;
- a gate driver configured to generate one or more gating signals to control one or more operations of the switch;
- a signal conditioner configured to:
- receive an input signal associated with the switch;
- and
- generate a modification signal configured to modify the one or more gating signals based on the input signal, wherein the modified gating signal is configured to reduce an amplitude of a voltage transient received by the switch to below a voltage threshold.
3 more elements
A circuit, comprising:
- a dead band circuit comprising one or more Zener diodes or one or more transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes;
- a high-pass filter circuit comprising a resistor-capacitor circuit;
- and
- an attenuator circuit comprising a plurality of resistors coupled in series with a resistor;
- wherein the circuit is configured to couple across a semiconductor switch configured to provide power to a load component.
2 more elements
A method, comprising:
- attenuating, via an attenuator circuit of a signal conditioning circuitry, one or more voltage transients associated one or more signals received by a semiconductor switch and below a first voltage threshold;
- converting, via the attenuator circuit, a voltage signal below the first voltage threshold and associated with the one or more signals into a modification signal configured to modify a gating signal generated from a gate driver circuitry;
- attenuating, via a dead band circuit of the signal conditioning circuitry, a first voltage transient associated the one or more signals and above the first voltage threshold, wherein the first voltage transient is associated with a first duration greater than a threshold amount of time;
- passing, via the dead band circuit, within the threshold amount of time, a second voltage transient received by the semiconductor switch and above the first voltage threshold, wherein the second voltage transient is associated with a second duration less than the threshold amount of time;
- attenuating, via the dead band circuit, the second voltage transient to below a second voltage threshold, wherein the second voltage threshold corresponds to a maximum voltage allowable for the semiconductor switch and greater than the first voltage threshold;
- passing, via a high-pass filter circuit, a portion of the modification signal having frequency contents higher than a frequency threshold;
- determining, via a comparison circuit of a shunt circuitry of the signal conditioning circuitry, whether the gating signal exceeds a Miller plateau voltage threshold;
- in response to determining that the gating signal is below the Miller plateau voltage threshold, amplifying, via an amplifier circuit, the portion of the modification signal;
- and
- injecting, via a modulator circuit, the amplified portion of the modification signal to the gate driver circuitry to modify the gating signal into a modified gating signal, wherein the modified gating signal is configured to enable the shunt circuitry, wherein enabling the shunt circuit disables the semiconductor switch to reduce an amplitude of second voltage transient within the threshold amount of time.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.