Electrification of passenger and commercial vehicles has brought about significant changes to the R&D process of various sub-systems in the automotive and e-mobility market. Primarily, the fast pace in moving from design concept to market readiness of EV systems is unusual in a “traditional” automotive development cycle.
Furthermore, in comparison to ICE systems (engines and transmission), these relatively “simpler” EV systems have enabled the entrance of non-traditional Tier 1 suppliers to the automotive ecosystem, thus increasing competition. To combat the impact of rising costs and maintain control of IP and the bill of materials (BOM), many OEMs are moving towards building in-house capability to design, develop and manufacture these subsystems. Meanwhile, the traditional Tier 1s continue to invest in EV systems whilst competing with new entrants and trying to maintain their penetration with the OEMs. In order to maintain relevancy and provide differentiated services, some Tier 1 suppliers offer to integrate multiple pieces of key EV system components, like inverter, traction motor and gear-box. OEMs and new Tier 1 suppliers both face a steep learning curve with regards to the system analysis and integration, especially related to functional safety requirements. As a consequence, they increasingly look towards their semiconductor suppliers to help close this development and knowledge gap.
The different automotive sub-systems have varying demands with regards to system performance and functional safety. In the specific case of traction inverter systems, the trend is to increase features to achieve maximum efficiency and reduced BOM cost. High performance intelligent gate drivers are starting to emerge to meet the demands for increased features and performance while reducing board area and BOM cost.
Newer gate drivers, like NXP’s GD3100 and GD3160, provide intelligence and programmability which not only protect the SiC or IGBT power devices in the face of harsh operating conditions, but also increase system efficiency and reduce fault detection/ reaction times.
Integrated high-voltage (> 1,000 Vrms) isolation allows for the digital reporting of various types of information, from the high voltage (400 V to 800 V) domain to the low voltage (12 V) domain. These parameters include various fault conditions, power device temperature and VCE or VGE state of the power device. Improved monitoring of these various parameters aid in achieving ASIL D functional safety of the EV system. Gate drive wave-shaping features such as the segmented drive allow customers to optimize switching for efficiency while protecting against overshoot, which translates to lower EMC noise.
At NXP, we stay committed to providing system solutions such as traction inverter reference designs and full inverter evaluation tools along with the functional safety documentation to enable reduced development cost and faster time to market.
For more information, please see our video about NXP isolated gate driver features and benefits video.
Namrata Pandya joined NXP as a Product Marketing Manager for the high voltage gate drivers. For the past 15 years, Namrata’s work included business development and product line management for >$60M semiconductor product portfolios at ON Semiconductor and Microchip Technology. She has been responsible for driving 16 product families from concept to revenue. Namrata holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University.
