Zetex Semiconductors bipolar gate drivers

Zetex Semiconductors has announced a series of bipolar gate drivers for switching MOSFETs and IGBTs in power supplies and motor drives.

Capable of sinking currents up to 9 A, the ZXGD3000 series enables faster charging and discharging of gate capacitances than is possible with gate driver ICs.

There are four high-speed non-inverting gate drivers in the series, covering a supply voltage range of 12 to 40. Their fast switching emitter-follower configuration achieves propagation delays less than 2 ns and rise/fall times of about 10 ns, giving improved control of MOSFET switching.

The devices prevent latch-up and eliminate shoot-through,

The series enables component count to be reduced and power densities to be increased. The devices’ high current gain and low input current requirement allows direct interface with low-power controller ICs.

Independent source and sink output pins provide designers to separately control gate rise and fall times.