Isolated gate driver portfolio expanded with bipolar-output power-thru IC

Allegro MicroSystems, Inc. has launched the second product in its high-voltage power portfolio. The AHV85111 isolated gate-driver IC adds critical safety features while simplifying the design of high-power energy conversion systems for e-Mobility and clean energy applications, including OBC/DCDC, solar inverter and datacenter power supply.

"Allegro continues to build upon the technology from our acquisitions in order to expand our High Voltage Power portfolio aimed at helping designers achieve their efficiency and power density needs in clean energy and e-mobility systems," said Vijay Mangtani, vice president and general manager for High Voltage Power at Allegro. "The bipolar-output of our latest device improves noise immunity and significantly simplifies high-frequency power-converter designs."

Building upon the company's existing power-thru technology, the IC was designed to fulfil designer demands for a simple, streamlined and safe solution. The gate driver adds bipolar-output, a crucial feature that greatly improves time to market by eradicating the need to design a complicated negative isolated DC power supply and removing unnecessary external components. Its newest power-thru solution also adds crucial safety features that were created to protect against high operating temperatures in electric powertrain systems and reactions to noisy environments that may be present in microinverters in solar applications, power supply in data centre applications or onboard chargers for EVs.

The gate driver packs all the benefits of the company's power-thru technology, including 10x lower common-mode capacitance, a 50% smaller footprint, 10x noise reduction and a 50% efficiency improvement compared to competitor offerings, while also delivering overtemperature protection that further improves the robustness of the system.