STMicroelectronics adds 3A isolated gate drivers for SiC and IGBT designs

STMicroelectronics has expanded its STGAP3S gate-driver family with new 3A parts for lower-drive-current power circuits, including charging stations, energy storage, inverters and industrial drives. The update aims to simplify isolated power design while improving protection, efficiency and board-level integration.

Why it matters: - The new 3A gate drivers target power designs that need galvanic isolation, strong fault protection and lower drive current in a smaller footprint. - The parts are aimed at high-voltage systems used in charging stations, energy storage systems, solar inverters, industrial vehicles, induction heating and general drives. - STMicroelectronics says the new integration can reduce PCB space and bill of materials while improving clamping performance and safety.

What happened: - STMicroelectronics extended the STGAP3S family with two new 3A isolated gate drivers: the STGAP3S3S for silicon carbide MOSFETs and the STGAP3S3IF for IGBTs. - The company introduced the parts for applications that need lower drive current than the family’s existing 6A and 10A options. - The full STGAP3S family is in production now. - STMicroelectronics set pricing for the SO16W wide-body package at $1.93 each in orders of 1,000 units.

The details: - All STGAP3S drivers support high-voltage rails up to 1200V in power-factor correction, power supplies, DC/DC converters and inverters. - The family carries safety and insulation certifications including UL 1577 and IEC 60747-17. - STMicroelectronics says its reinforced galvanic isolation protects against transients up to 9.6kV and provides common-mode transient immunity up to 200V/ns. - The family now includes three current tiers: 10A, 6A and 3A. - Each tier includes variants optimized for either IGBTs or silicon-carbide MOSFETs. - The new STGAP3S3 series integrates a complete active Miller clamp, including the clamping MOSFET, to prevent unwanted turn-on and shoot-through currents. - The 6A STGAP3S6 and 10A STGAP3SX series use a pre-driver for an external MOSFET, giving designers more flexibility to tune clamping speed in higher-current systems. - All STGAP3S devices include desaturation detection with soft turn-off to control voltage and current transitions during overload or short-circuit events. - The 6A and 10A drivers, plus the new 3A SiC versions, allow an external resistor to adjust soft turn-off speed. - Diagnostic pins indicate desaturation protection, undervoltage lockout and thermal shutdown status. - The drivers support negative gate voltage to improve immunity to unwanted turn-on, help protect the device during fault turn-off and reduce ringing in normal turn-off transitions. - Evaluation boards are available for each STGAP3S driver, including the EVLSTGAP3S3S and EVLSTGAP3S3IF half-bridge boards for the new 3A models. - The evaluation boards include protection already configured, plus test points and diagnostic LEDs for development. - More information is available at the product page.

Between the lines: - The new 3A parts fill a gap between the family’s higher-current drivers and designs that do not need as much gate-drive strength. - Integrating the active Miller clamp into the 3A series shifts more protection circuitry onto the chip, which can simplify design work for engineers. - STMicroelectronics is positioning the family across both SiC and IGBT markets, reflecting the different needs of modern power conversion systems.

What's next: - Designers can now evaluate the new parts using the available half-bridge boards and move toward production with the full family already shipping. - The lower-cost 3A drivers may broaden adoption in systems that need isolation, protection and compact integration without the overhead of higher-drive parts.