Similar to other power semiconductors, gallium nitride enhancement-mode high-electron-mobility transistors (GaN E-HEMTs) require short-circuit protection (SCP) or overcurrent protection (OCP) in practical applications. However, the fast-switching characteristic of GaN introduces the challenge to the protection. For SCP, the traditional methods are either too slow or not practical for GaN. Therefore, an alternative SCP solution, which is fast and easy to implement, is much desired. For high power density applications, it is also popular to integrate OCP into the gate driver. Therefore, a fast protection circuit that can be used for either SCP or OCP is desirable. In this article, an ultrafast discrete circuit-based protection circuit is proposed for GaN HEMTs. It includes a first soft turn- off stage and a second hard turn- off stage. The soft turn- off stage effectively limits the voltage spike over the device. Following the soft turn- off stage, the hard turn- off stage will cut off the pulsewidth modulation signal immediately completely. A dual-gate implementation approach is further proposed for devices with two gate pads. The method has been verified by both SPICE simulation and hardware implementations for both SCP and OCP. The experimental results show that the total propagation delay time for SCP is only 125 ns while the normal switching performance is not affected.

中文翻译：

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具有快速响应的GaN HEMT的基于去饱和的简单保护电路

与其他功率半导体类似，氮化镓增强模式高电子迁移率晶体管（GaN E-HEMT）在实际应用中需要短路保护（SCP）或过电流保护（OCP）。但是，GaN的快速开关特性给保护提出了挑战。对于SCP，传统方法要么太慢，要么对GaN不实用。因此，迫切需要一种快速且易于实施的替代性SCP解决方案。对于高功率密度应用，将OCP集成到栅极驱动器中也很普遍。因此，需要一种可用于SCP或OCP的快速保护电路。在本文中，提出了一种用于GaN HEMT的超快速分立电路保护电路。它包括第一个软转弯 关 阶段和第二次艰难转弯 关阶段。柔转 关级有效地限制了器件上的电压尖峰。顺着软弯 关 阶段，艰难的转折 关阶段将立即完全切断脉宽调制信号。对于具有两个栅极焊盘的器件，进一步提出了双栅极实施方案。该方法已通过SPICE模拟和针对SCP和OCP的硬件实现进行了验证。实验结果表明，SCP的总传播延迟时间仅为125 ns，而正常的开关性能没有受到影响。