Gate Driver for Electric Motorcycle (MOSFET)

Thread Starter

jegues

Joined Sep 13, 2010
733
Evening gents,

I am currently trying to design a suitable gate driver circuit for a half bridge circuit for an electric motorcycle.

The half bridge will be composed of MOSFETs and FWD (in either a module or made from discrete components) and a battery bank of ~55V and operating with switching frequency of 15-20kHz.

I've seen how gate drive chips can be used with charge pump and bootstrap capacitor circuitry in order to drive the high side switch, but I've also heard that it can be done with a DC-DC converter.

Can someone explain to me how this done, or point me towards a good reference?

Also, can anyone suggest a suitable gate driver for our particular application?

Thanks again!
 

Thread Starter

jegues

Joined Sep 13, 2010
733
You can't run a motor at 100% duty cycle with a bootstrap capacitor. I would think he wants 100% power. Since he only seems to want to go forward this might be easiest.
We are actually planning on implementing regenerative braking in the converter as well.
 

ronv

Joined Nov 12, 2008
3,770
In which case you need the high side FET, not just the diode. I would think the charge pump driver would be easiest.
 
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