Seeking to increase power density and reduce system design complexity, Texas Instruments has introduced a silicon carbide (SiC) isolated gate driver that allows engineers to boost electric vehicle (EV) driving range by more than seven miles per battery charge.
TI said traction inverter systems are helping to overcome EV barriers to widespread adoption and the UCC5880-Q1 gate driver allows automakers to build safer, more efficient and more reliable SiC and insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT)-based inverters.
The semiconductor features real-time variable gate-drive strength, serial peripheral interface (SPI), advanced SiC monitoring and protection as well as diagnostics for functional safety.
To get more power performance from EVs, direct impact on operating range improvement per charge is needed. But achieving this is hard for designers due to traction inverters already operating at 90% efficiency or higher.
How it helps
Varying the gate-drive strength in real time allows designers to improve system efficiency with the gate driver as much as 2% by minimizing SiC switching power losses. This results in up to seven more miles of EV driving range per battery charge.
TI said for an EV user who charges a vehicle three times per week, this could mean more than 1,000 additional miles per year.
TI said engineers can reduce components and prototype quickly an efficient traction inverter system using the SiC EV traction inverter reference design. This includes the UCC5880-Q1, a bias-supply power module, real-time control microcontrollers and high-precision sensing.
