A fast overcurrent protection scheme for GaN GITs

A fast overcurrent protection scheme was developed for GaN gate injection transistors (GITs), harnessing the relationship between the externally measured vgs and id in steady-state operation. This relationship has been characterized in both static and dynamic testing over a wide range of operating conditions, and a circuit has been constructed to implement this control scheme. The circuit uses analog components to integrate the protection feature into a commercially available GIT gate driver. The scheme was experimentally verified in a double pulse test setup for experimental verification, and its total fault response time was recorded at less than 70 ns, with 400 V dc bus and a 30 A threshold. Compared with conventional desaturation protection, which detects faults based on drain voltage rather than gate voltage, the proposed scheme offers benefits in terms of speed, temperature invariance, flexibility in threshold selection, and minimal impact on the GIT's normal switching behavior.