HALF BRIDGE POWER CONVERTER, AND SWITCHING METHOD FOR HALF BRIDGE POWER CONVERTER AND POWER SWITCH

Abstract

A switching method for a half bridge power converter includes at least a pair of power switches in legs of the convertor providing upper and lower branch power switches and first and second gate control circuits for the upper and lower branch power switches. The switching method includes sensing the current derivative in the upper and lower branches during switching of the pair of power switches to provide a first signal and a second signal proportional to the current derivative of the power current in the upper and lower power switches, summing the first and second signals to provide a summed current derivative signal, and adding the summed current derivative signal to the power switch command signal of the first and second gate control circuits causing the summed derivative signals to modulate the gate commutation signals of the gate control circuits.

Claims

1. A switching method for a half bridge power converter comprising at least a pair of power switches in a leg of said converter providing an upper branch power switch and a lower branch power switch and comprising a first gate control circuit for said upper branch power switch and a second gate control circuit for said lower branch power switch, characterized in that said switching method comprises: sensing a current derivative in said upper branch and a current derivative in said lower proportional during switching of said pair of power switches to provide a first signal proportional to the current derivative of a power current in said upper power switch and a second signal proportional to the current derivative of a power current in said lower power switch, summing said first and second signals to provide a summed current derivative signal and; adding said summed current derivative signal to a power switch command signal of said first gate control circuit and a power switch command signal of said second gate control circuit causing the summed derivative signal to modulate gate commutation signals of said gate control circuits such that a current variation in both power switches is equalized by slowing down a commutation of a faster power switch of said pair of power switches while accelerating a commutation of a slower switch of said pair of power switches, in view to reduce dead time of commutation and control current overshoot in said switches.

2. The switching method for a half bridge power converter according to claim 1 wherein said method comprises amplifying said summed current derivative signal prior to adding said summed current derivative signal to the power switch command signals.

3. A switching method for at least one pair of power switches according to claim 1 wherein sensing the current derivative in said upper branch is done with separate first and second upper sensors and sensing the current derivative in said lower branch is done with separate first and second lower sensors to provide a first summed current derivative signal to be added to the switch command signal of said first gate control circuit and a second summed current derivative signal to be added to the switch command signal of said second gate control circuit.

4. The switching method for at least one pair of power switches according to claim 3 wherein said method comprises referencing said first summed current derivative to the voltage of the bottom end of said upper branch power switch and referencing said second summed current derivative to the voltage of the bottom end of said lower branch power switch.

5. A half bridge power converter comprising an upper power switch on an upper branch of the converter, said upper power switch being driven by a first gate-control driver, and a lower power switch on a lower branch of the converter, said lower power switch being driven by a second gate-control driver, characterized in that said gate control drivers each comprises an electronic circuit for implementing the switching method of claim 4 wherein said electronic circuits comprise, for each of said upper and lower switch, at least a first current derivative sensor on said upper branch providing a first current derivation signal, at least a second current derivative sensor on said lower branch providing a second current derivation signal, modulating and conditioning circuit for adding and amplifying said first and second current derivation signals to provide an amplified summed derivation signal and an adder for adding said derivation signal to the command signals of said first and second gates drivers.

6. The half bridge power converter according to claim 5 wherein said modulating and conditioning circuits are powered through power supplies having a mid-point referenced to the low end voltage of the power switch they act on.

7. The half bridge power converter according to claim 5 wherein each of said modulating and conditioning circuits is located before a gate buffer and after a pre-driver circuit part of the gate-control driver of each of the power switches.

8. The half bridge power converter according to claim 5 wherein said current derivative sensors are made with Rogowski coils.

9. The half bridge power converter according to claim 8 wherein said Rogowski coils are annular Rogowski coils located around power conductors of the power switches.

10. The half bridge power converter according to claim 9 wherein said Rogowski coils are each routed with lines in multiple layers of a multilayer PCB having a central aperture for receiving a power conductor in a direction perpendicular to said PCB.

11. The half bridge power converter according to claim 9 wherein two Rogowski coils are interleaved on the upper branch power switch power conductor and/or on the lower branch power switch power conductor.

12. The half bridge power converter according to claim 5 wherein said current derivative sensors are straight Rogowski coils each routed in multiple layers of a multilayer PCB and surrounded by a power conductor track routed from an upper side to a lower side of said PCB around said planar coils in a perpendicular direction to said coils.

13. The half bridge power converter according to claim 12 wherein two straight Rogowski coils are interleaved on the power conductor of the upper branch power switch and/or the power conductor of the lower branch power switch are interleaved.

14. A power converter comprising two or more half bridge power converters according to claim 5.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0037] FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a converter on which the present disclosure applies.

[0038] FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a gate-control with the system of the present disclosure.

[0039] FIG. 3 is a chart of an example of commutation in accordance with the present disclosure.

[0040] FIG. 4 is an example of adder and amplifier circuit of the present disclosure.

[0041] FIG. 5A is a general schematic of a Rogowski coil applicable.

[0042] FIG. 5B is a first embodiment of Rogowski coil of the present disclosure.

[0043] FIG. 6A is a schematic view of another embodiment of Rogowski coil of the present disclosure.

[0044] FIG. 6B is a schematic view of a dual straight Rogowski coil of FIG. 6A.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0045] The following description is based on a MOSFET application but can be extended to any unipolar (JFET, IGFET, HEMT) or bipolar transistor (BJT or IGBT) for which only the name of the electrodes need to be changed.

[0046] FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a DC/DC converter 1 with two power switches 10, 11 in the leg of a half bridge converter having a DC voltage source 2 with capacitor 3 and where the inductive load 20 is connected in parallel with an upper power switch 10 in an upper branch 4 of the leg between the high potential V.sub.DC line of a DC voltage of the DC source 2 and the midpoint of the complete leg and where the lower power switch is located in a lower branch 5 of the leg between the midpoint of the complete leg and the low potential of the DC source.

[0047] The upper power switch is driven by a first gate-control circuit 12 and the lower power switch 11 is driven by a second gate-control circuit 13.

[0048] In accordance with the present disclosure two current derivative sensors 141, 142 oriented in a same direction are positioned on the upper branch conductor and two current derivative sensors 151, 152 oriented in a same direction are positioned on the lower branch 5 conductor.

[0049] The principle of the disclosure is based on: [0050] sensing the current derivative

[00004]$\frac{{\mathrm{dI}}_u\left(t\right)}{\mathrm{dt}}$

and

[00005]$\frac{{\mathrm{dI}}_l\left(t\right)}{\mathrm{dt}}$

flowing through the upper and lower branches power switches during commutation, [0051] adding the upper branch current derivative and the lower branch current derivative, amplifying the leg derivative current

[00006]$\frac{\mathrm{dI}}{\mathrm{dt}}$

obtained, [0052] modulating the power device gate voltage according to

[00007]$\frac{\mathrm{dI}}{\mathrm{dt}}$

sensor signals,

[0053] And complete the commutation.

[0054] Filtering the signals coming from the current derivative sensors can also be done if necessary.

[0055] This process ensures zero dead-time in the commutation and uses: [0056] means for sensing the current derivative flowing through each device of the switching cell; [0057] means for conditioning the current derivative signals coming from the sensors; [0058] means for modulating the power device gate voltage with the sum of these current derivative signals.

[0059] FIG. 2 represents gate-control circuits 12, 13 of the present disclosure. Each of the upper branch and the lower branch has its own gate-control circuit. On each of these gate-control circuits are connected one derivative current sensor 141, 142 of the upper branch and one current derivative sensor 151, 152 of the lower branch. Each gate-control circuit comprise a pre-driver 16 with an insulating barrier between a controller input module powered by an upstream power supply V.sub.DDI, V.sub.EE1 and an output module powered by a downstream power supply V.sub.DD2x, V.sub.EE2x. The downstream power supply also powers a modulating and conditioning circuit 18 also called shoot through circuit STC receiving the derivative current sensors outputs and a gate control circuit.

[0060] The modulating and conditioning circuit 18 receives the derivative currents sensed by the upper branch and the lower branch derivative current sensors and has its output signal 18a mixed at the mixer 19 with the pre-driver 16 output signal 16a to provide the command signal 17a buffered through a gate buffer 17 connected to the gate of the power switch of the branch to which the gate-control circuit is connected.

[0061] According to the nature of the different signals, the conditioning and modulating functions are identical for the upper and lower power switches defining the switching cell. However due to the different potentials needed to command the switches, e.g. in FIG. 1 the upper MOSFET switch source is at a higher potential than the lower MOSFET switch source, two gate-control circuits 12, 13, each having its upper 141, 142 and lower 151, 152 sensors, pre-driver 16, modulating and conditioning circuit 18 and gate buffer 17, are needed. The current derivative sensors are also identical and a particular care on the design is required to be able to insert the sensors at the same location in the circuit to ensure same current derivative measurement for the two power devices.

[0062] The detailed operation of the invention will be done according to the following assumption and initial state with respect to FIG. 1 where MOSFET devices 10, 11 are considered in the switching cell, the symbol includes the intrinsic body-diode and output capacitor COSS.

[0063] The load 20 is connected between the middle point of the switching cell and the high potential of the DC voltage source 2, the load current is considered positive, meaning the current goes from the positive DC bus to the middle node of the switching cell, the load current is considered constant during the transition time scale, the upper switch Q1 10 is considered “ON”, meaning that it is conducting the load current, the lower switch Q2 11 is considered “OFF”, meaning that it is blocking the DC voltage and no current is flowing through it.

[0064] The description hereunder focuses the transition from Q1 conducting/Q2 blocking to Q1 blocking/Q2 conducting but applies to the inverse transition.

[0065] According to FIG. 1 and the Kirchhoff's current law the relation between the different currents are as in (1).

IQ1+ILoad−IQ2=0  (1)

[0066] The detailed description of dead-time less operation is done according to FIG. 3. For 0≤t≤aT the top switch Q1 is ON and the bottom switch Q2 is OFF. The gate voltages are respectively V.sub.GS1 in high (positive) and V.sub.GS2 in low (negative) state. The load current I.sub.Load is flowing through Q1 from Source (S) to Drain (D) meaning that I.sub.Q1=−I.sub.Load. At t=αT complementary control signals Sig.sub.1 and Sig.sub.2 from the controller are sent to Q1 and Q2, in parallel nearly without any dead-time which allows having nearly simultaneous control on both switches within the limit of the tolerances of the components. The gate-source voltages V.sub.GS1, V.sub.GS2 of the two switches start moving with a slight delay due to propagation times. The current flowing through the switches increases with a positive current derivative because of the start of cross-conduction. The

[00008]$\frac{\mathrm{dI}\left(t\right)}{\mathrm{dt}}$

sensors placed as presented in FIG. 2 react with a negative coupling; therefore the sensor output voltages V.sub.Sensor=V.sub.Bx=V.sub.Tx, where V.sub.Tx and V.sub.Bx are respectively the voltages of the upper and lower sensor, is negative. The output voltages of the upper and lower sensor are summed and amplified by the modulating and amplifying circuit 18 (shoot through circuit STC) placed in parallel of the conventional pre-driver 16. Therefore, the signal at the input of the gate buffer 17 is a combination of the pre-driver output 16a and the STC output 18a of FIG. 2. The two gate-source voltages are independently modulated according to the current derivative to avoid any surge current, normally present during cross-conduction and that could potentially lead to the destruction of the switching cell. The switch currents I.sub.Q1 and I.sub.Q2 are oscillating before reaching the steady state. Oscillations are also managed by the current derivative sensors and the STC circuit. In practice the oscillations are reduced with the proposed invention. This would apply mutatis-mutandis to the V.sub.GE Gate-emitter voltage of an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT).

[0067] At t=αT=t1 the commutation can be considered complete as the current I.sub.Q2 in Q2 is almost equal to the load current and the current I.sub.Q1 in Q1 almost equal to zero. Even if some oscillations remain the current derivative is not big enough to fully activate the STC circuit. As soon as the two currents become constant the STC circuit is no more operative until the next transition orders.

[0068] The following steps are summing-up the operation of the zero-dead time control system:

[0069] Complementary orders are sent from the Controller to the gate control circuit without any dead-time,

[0070] Q2 start conducting while Q1 is not completely OFF,

[0071] The current flowing through the top and bottom devices start rising,

[0072] The current derivative sensors sense the current derivative of the leg current,

[0073] The output voltage of the two current derivative sensors related to each power device are summed,

[0074] If it is needed a filtering stage can be applied to the coil's output voltage,

[0075] The sum of the

[00009]$\frac{\mathrm{dI}\left(t\right)}{\mathrm{dt}}$

signals from coils are amplified,

[0076] The gate voltage of each device is modulated according to the

[00010]$\frac{\mathrm{dI}\left(t\right)}{\mathrm{dt}}$

to control the transition current to have Q1 turn-OFF sped up and Q2 turn-ON slowed down.

[0077] When the commutation is complete Q1 is “OFF” and Q2 is “ON”;

[0078] This operation procedure is the same in the case of Q2 turning OFF and Q1 turning ON.

[0079] Back to FIG. 2, the circuits of a gate-control 12, 13 are as follows.

[0080] The pre-driver 16 transfers the control signal from a controller to the gate node and isolates the “power circuit” from the controller part as usual in a converter. According to the driver architecture there are no particular constraints on the pre-driver's current capabilities. The pre-driver function can be fulfilled by any standard component of the art.

[0081] The current derivative sensors 141, 142, 151, 152 generate signals that are proportional to the time rate of change of the drain-source current of the power switches. When the current I.sub.DS flowing through a power device is going from a highest value to a lowest value the output signal of the corresponding sensor is positive. Conversely when the current I.sub.DS of the power device is going from a lowest value to a highest value the output signal of such sensor is negative. This function can be done by using Rogowski coils which are wound coils surrounding a main conductor as presented in FIG. 5A discussed hereunder.

[0082] The modulating and amplifying circuit (STC circuit) of FIG. 2 is presented in more details in FIG. 4. This circuit is duplicated for the two controlled power switches and amplifies the signal coming from the derivative sensors TB.sub.X and TT.sub.X, x being 1 or 2 (e.g. sensors 141 and 151 or sensors 142 and 152) respectively for switch Q1 10 and Q2 11. In the preferred implementation, the STC is composed of two transistors 101 and 102, the respective emitter of each transistor is connected to a middle point through an R-C circuit, (R3 103-C2 105 and R4 104-C3 106). R3 103 and R4 104 are used as a negative feedback in case of a thermal drift of the transistors. C2 105 and C3 106 assure a very low impedance path for the amplified AC signal. The zener diode (DZ1) 107, the capacitor C6 108 and the resistors R9 109-R10 110 are acting as decoupled voltage source as the value for R9-R10 are selected to be relatively high.

[0083] The resistance network composed of resistor R5 111, R8 112, R6 113 and R7 114 is implemented to polarize the two transistors 101, 102, meaning the base-emitter voltages (VBE) are close to 0.6 V. With this polarization the two transistors are at the limit of the blocking state and the linear portion. All this assembly composed of the two transistors and passive components act as a class AB amplifier, amplifying the signal from the current derivative sensors connected through the AC coupling capacitors C4 115 and C5 116. The last R-C combination formed by C1 117 and R2 118 connected between the output of the amplifier and the gate buffer can be tuned to obtain the desired gain.

[0084] Power supplies of the gate-control circuits and amplifier circuit are referenced to the bottom end voltage, or source voltage in case of a MOSFET, of the power switch they act on. Here this corresponds to the mid-point of the leg for the upper switch and the lower point of the leg for the bottom switch. Each circuit is then provided with its own V.sub.DD and V.sub.EE that is V.sub.DD2x and V.sub.EE2x with x in correspondence to the upper or the lower switch reference.

[0085] The principle disclosed for a converter having one leg with two branches 4, 5 and two switches can be extended to an unlimited number of switches as long as the total number of switches of a switching cell is pair.

[0086] With respect to the current derivative sensors a possible implementation is a Rogowski coil 30 such as schematically represented in FIG. 5A. Such a coil has a toroidal winding 31 and a return conductor inside the winding 32. The coil lies in a plane perpendicular to a conductor 40 to be sensed and has two output terminals A, B.

[0087] To assure that the two current derivative sensors surrounding the same conductor are sensing the same H-field a particular care is mandatory during the design process. The selected solution is to interleave the two windings, which is easy to do by designing the sensors as interleaved Rogowski coils made with a multilayer PCB, as presented in FIG. 5B. This configuration can be used as an external sensor.

[0088] In such implementation where the PCB has four layers, the toroidal windings of a first coil may be done through lines 33 going from an upper level to a lower level line 39 through vias 37, 38 and the return line 35 of said coil through an intermediate level, said first coil having input/output terminals 33a, 35a. The second coil may have input/output terminals 34a, 36a, a toroidal winding 34, 39 interleaved with the winding of the first coil in the first and fourth level and a return line 36 on a second intermediate level. Such a design is easy to manufacture, compact and provides a good matching of the two interleaved coils.

[0089] In a specific embodiment which may be used in other applications than the present converter, a reversed or straight Rogowski coil sensor is provided as presented in FIG. 6A, where the coil is between branches of a conductor to sense. Such coil can also be integrated in inner layers of a multilayer PCB. The coil winding is done with tracks 51 in a first layer, vias 53, 54 and tracks 52 in a second layer. The first and second layers and vias are inner tracks and vias of the PCB and the reversed Rogowski coil is sensing the current derivative flowing through surface power tracks 41a, 41b surrounding the coil and connected through 41c.

[0090] In FIG. 6B a double coil is designed and a second coil 6 having input output terminals 60a, 60b and second tracks 61, 62 is interleaved with the first coil tracks and connected through vias 63, 64 parallel to the first coil vias. This provides a compact design that can be directly embedded in the converter PCB or any other device PCB and that does not necessitate wiring of cables and soldering of terminals.

[0091] As stated above the present invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiment as the converter may also be of the inverter type with three legs with sensors in each leg and adding and amplifying circuit for each gate control circuit or a converter having multiple parallel switches per leg where the gate control circuits for such parallel switch are equipped with the sensing and current modulating circuits of the invention.