GATE DRIVE CIRCUIT FOR SEMICONDUCTOR SWITCHING ELEMENT

• Main Authors: HORI YASUYOSHI, HARADA SHIGEKI, TANAKA YUYA, YAMADA MASAKI, KITAMURA TATSUYA
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 27.03.2014
• Subjects: APPARATUS FOR CONVERSION BETWEEN AC AND AC, BETWEEN AC AND DC,OR BETWEEN DC AND DC, AND FOR USE WITH MAINS OR SIMILAR POWERSUPPLY SYSTEMS; BASIC ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY; CONTROL OR REGULATION THEREOF; CONVERSION OF DC OR AC INPUT POWER INTO SURGE OUTPUTPOWER; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER; ELECTRICITY; GENERATION; PULSE TECHNIQUE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent an arm short circuit by maintaining a semiconductor switching element in an off state even in the case of a loss of power supply to a gate drive circuit.SOLUTION: The gate drive circuit includes: a first gate voltage supply for outputting an on gate voltage applied to a gate electrode to turn on the semiconductor switching element; a second gate voltage supply for receiving a voltage between two main electrodes of the semiconductor switching element, and outputting a second negative gate voltage that is a negative voltage relative to a source electrode that is one of the two main electrodes which is on a current outflow side; a negative bias capacitor having one end at a potential of the source electrode and the other end charged to a negative potential by the second negative gate voltage; and a switch circuit for switching a connection relationship between the negative potential side terminal of the negative bias capacitor and the output of the on gate voltage of the first gate voltage supply, and the gate electrode of the semiconductor switching element.