A new resonant gate driver with bipolar gate voltage and gate energy recovery

This paper presents a new resonant gate driver for voltage driven power devices like MOSFETs and IGBTs. The driver recovers part of the energy that is stored in the gate capacitance and uses it to recharge the capacitance in the next switching cycle. Hence, power consumption of the gate driver is reduced. The paper discusses the circuit operation and the analysis of the circuit. The operation of the circuit is supported by simulated and experimental results. The results show that the gate voltage and current output agree well with the theoretical analysis. Approximately half of the gate drive energy can be recovered during each switching cycle. This allows a smaller gate drive power supply to be used for the gate driver.