CICC 2019 ES1-1 "High Voltage Devices, Topologies and Gate Drivers" - Yogesh Ramadass

Abstract: Power electronics can be found in everything from electric vehicles and industrial motors, to laptop power adaptors that hook up to the wall outlets. While silicon still dominates the power semiconductor landscape, the recent onset of wide bandgap semiconductor (WBG) devices promises low loss, higher frequency operation of converters leading to smaller, lighter power supplies. This tutorial will introduce the properties of high voltage (200-1200V) Si superjunction and WBG devices and discuss their relative merits. The common power converter topologies employed in power systems will be explored with a detailed analysis of the main loss mechanisms inside a converter and the impact of topology and device choice on efficiency and power density. The latter part of the tutorial will discuss gate drive and associated protection circuits that are required to safely operate the power FETs with examples provided from commercial gate driver designs. Biography: Yogesh Ramadass received his B. Tech. degree from IIT-Kharagpur and the S. M. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT all in Electrical Engineering. He is currently the director of power management R&D at Kilby Labs, Texas Instruments, where he is involved in research and product development efforts looking into high power density and low-EMI automotive and industrial switching converters, small form-factor converters for consumer electronics, nano-power IoT designs and high voltage power systems. Dr. Ramadass was awarded the President of India Gold Medal in 2004, the EETimes ‘Innovator of the Year’ award in 2013 and the ‘Young Alumni Achiever’ award by IITKharagpur in 2018. He was a co-recipient of the best paper awards at CICC 2018, ISSCC 2009 and ISSCC 2007. He is a senior member of the IEEE and serves as the chair of the ‘Power Management’ sub-committee at ISSCC and as a ‘Distinguished Lecturer’ for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society. He served as an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits from 2015-2018 and on the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits from 2016-2018.