EL SEGUNDO, CA. January 1997 - Improving on its popular 600-V control IC technology with several newly patented techniques, International Rectifier (IR) has developed a manufacturable and reliable high-voltage IC (HVIC) technology rated at up to 1200 Volts. The first product using this technology, the IR2233, is a 3-phase gate driver specifically designed for motor drive inverters operating from 480 VAC. The 1200-V rating allows the IC to operate directly across the power rails of the inverter with margin available to protect internal circuitry from overload conditions.

"The new 1200-V IR2233 reduces PCB space required to implement the gate drive and protection functions of a 3-phase inverter by more than 50%, while achieving higher performance than older discrete designs that use opto-couplers and other support circuits," says David Tam, Vice President of Power Integrated Circuits Group at International Rectifier. "The new devices also offer high dv/dt noise immunity from the fast-switching transients generated in the IGBT stage, matched delay and timing control of all three high-side and low-side channels for more accurate control, integrated protection circuitry to increase inverter ruggedness, and a driver stage designed to improve IGBT switching efficiency."

The IR2233 integrates the following major functional blocks in one chip: three independent high-side gate drive circuits; three low- side gate drive circuits; a current sensing amplifier; timing, sequencing, and protection logic circuits; and interface circuits to analog and digital inputs. The high-side gate drive circuits have common mode capabilities of floating to 1200 V. The level shifting circuits have dv/dt immunity from slow to fast-switching transients up to 50 V/ns. Both the high-side and low-side differential mode gate drive voltages can be as high as 20 V. The gate drive current capabilities are up to 0.5 A, which is sufficient to drive IGBTs for inverters rated to 5 HP.

The IR2233 gate drive stages offer latch immunity of greater than -0.5 A, a critical design parameter in the gate drive stage due to displacement current feedback from the IGBT output stage. The current sense amplifier is designed to couple with a low-value precision-sensing resistor in the power return path for amplification of phase leg current. Both inputs and the output of the amplifier are available as external pins to allow noise filtering. Other features include dead-time, shoot-through prevention, and I/O noise filtering.

The IR2233J is packaged in a 44-pin PLCC package. Samples are available and lead-time for production orders is 8-12 weeks. Engineering samples of a pin-compatible 600-V version, the IR2133J for use with 230-VAC 3-phase motors, are also available now with production starting in Q2 1997.

To help customers decrease time-to-market when using the IR2233J and IR2133J in conjunction with IR powIRtrainÖ inverter modules, complete powIRtrain design kits are also offered. These include the complete bill of materials and Gerber board layout for a 3-phase gate driver stage, with bias power supply, protection circuits, and other auxiliary components.

Contact the Technical Assistance Center or your local Sales Rep.