DocID13862 Rev 3 9/18
L6384E Bootstrap driver
18
5 Bootstrap driver
A bootstrap circuitry is needed to supply the high voltage section. This function is normally
accomplished by a high voltage fast recovery diode (Figure 4 a). In the L6384E device
a patented integrated structure replaces the external diode. It is realized by a high voltage
DMOS, driven synchronously with the low-side driver (LVG), with a diode in series, as
shown in Figure 4 b. An internal charge pump (Figure 4 b) provides the DMOS driving
voltage. The diode connected in series to the DMOS has been added to avoid undesirable
turn-on.
C
BOOT
selection and charging
To choose the proper C
BOOT
value the external MOSFET can be seen as an equivalent
capacitor. This capacitor C
EXT
is related to the MOSFET total gate charge:
Equation 1
The ratio between the capacitors C
EXT
and C
BOOT
is proportional to the cyclical voltage loss.
It has to be:
C
BOOT
>>>C
EXT
E.g.: if Q
gate
is 30 nC and V
gate
is 10 V, C
EXT
is 3 nF. With C
BOOT
= 100 nF the drop would be
300 mV.
If HVG has to be supplied for a long time, the C
BOOT
selection has to take into account also
the leakage losses.
E.g.: HVG steady state consumption is lower than 100 A, so if HVG T
ON
is 5 ms, C
BOOT
has to supply 0.5 C to C
EXT
. This charge on a 1 F capacitor means a voltage drop of
0.5 V.
The internal bootstrap driver gives great advantages: the external fast recovery diode can
be avoided (it usually has a great leakage current).
This structure can work only if V
OUT
is close to GND (or lower) and in the meanwhile the
LVG is on. The charging time (T
charge
) of the C
BOOT
is the time in which both conditions are
fulfilled and it has to be long enough to charge the capacitor.
The bootstrap driver introduces a voltage drop due to the DMOS R
DSON
(typical value:
125 ). At low frequency this drop can be neglected. Anyway increasing the frequency it
must be taken in to account.
The following equation is useful to compute the drop on the bootstrap DMOS:
Equation 2
where Q
gate
is the gate charge of the external power MOSFET, R
dson
is the on-resistance of
the bootstrap DMOS, and T
charge
is the charging time of the bootstrap capacitor.
C
EXT
Q
gate
V
gate
-------------- -=
V
drop
I
ch earg
R
dson
V
drop
Q
gate
T
ch earg
------------------- R
dson
==