Compact gate drive printed circuit board for uninterruptible power system

A gate drive printed circuit board (PCB) was developed for a 50-mm-wide modular-design thin power unit that uses two double-sided cooled power modules in an uninterruptible power system (UPS). A conventional gate drive PCB has a concentrated gate power supply circuit that uses a large transformer and has a conventional pulse open-phase detection circuit that occupies a large mounting area. Thus, the gate drive PCB had to be downsized to make it as narrow as the thin power unit. Consequently, two circuit configurations were proposed to reduce mounting area: one was to decentralizes a gate power supply circuit using a pre-driver with a built-in DC/DC controller and a small distributed transformer, and the other was to downsize the pulse open-phase detection circuit. As a result, the gate drive PCB was downsized to 50 mm × 220 mm, 56 % smaller than the conventional one. Thus, a very thin power unit using a 50-mm-wide PCB was accomplished, and a UPS was developed that is 30 % smaller in volume than the conventional one.