Infineon's smart, automotive gate driver protects battery systems

Battery systems for 48V are used in multiple, growing market categories including mild hybrid electrical vehicles, trucks, e-wheelers, and battery packs for solar panels.

However, these Li-ion battery systems need to be protected against negative and positive voltages. In addition, these batteries must quickly and reliably disconnect from loads within microseconds in the event of an over-current.

Since a battery unit may not be dedicated to one vehicle, status diagnostic and protection threshold configurability are key.

To address these requirements, Infineon Technologies is introducing the EiceDRIVER 2ED4820-EM, a smart gate driver with SPI interface. The gate driver is an ideal companion to Infineon’s 80/100 V OptiMOS MOSFETs. It’s an ideal option for switching high-current loads in a 48V board net.

This smart, dual-channel high-side gate driver 2ED4820-EM in the EiceDRIVER APD family can tolerate negative voltages at Vbat down to -90 V and voltages up to +105 V. These various voltage conditions could occur during a short-circuit or a poor contact connection event.

What’s more: the new device includes a current sense amplifier for high or low-side measurement. The low-side measurement helps reduce cost, PCB space and the overall power dissipation since the existing shunt resistor of the battery-management system can be used. With the two integrated output channels, it is possible to control a dedicated pre-charge path or separate the charging and discharging current path of the battery, further reducing PCB space and overall cost.

The 2ED4820-EM is in production now. The device is PRO-SIL ISO26262-ready and comes with a safety application note to facilitate the use in functional-safety applications. To accelerate the design-in process, an evaluation board and a reference board equipped with the EiceDRIVER APD 2ED4820-EM are available for order.