Avago Technologies announced a new gate drive optocoupler targeting automotive hybrid electric vehicle applications. Designed to meet stringent automotive AEC-Q100 guidelines, the new ACPL-312T drive optocoupler provides 2.5A maximum peak output current to drive high powered IGBTs/MOSFETs and operates up to a high temperature rating of 125°C. Additionally, a propagation delay of 0.5 μs allows the circuit designer to reduce switching dead time and improve inverter efficiency.

Avago manufactures automotive optocouplers that support TS16949 requirements and are qualified for automotives electronics council (AEC) guidelines under extreme environmental test conditions. The test is performed under AEC-Q100 stress test guidelines that are suitable for operating in automotive applications. In addition to automotive requirements, the ACPL-312T optocouplers meet worldwide safety standards (UL1577, EN/IEC 60747-5-2 and CSA). To keep the IGBT firmly off, the ACPL-312T has a very low maximum VOL specification of 0.5 V. The ACPL-312T realizesthis very low VOL by using a DMOS transistor with 1 ΩΩ (typical) on resistance in its pull down circuit. When the ACPL-312T is in the low state, the IGBT gate is shorted to the emitter by Rg + 1 ΩΩ.

Avago’s ACPL-312T optocoupler leverages an automotive-grade LED that was developed and produced in-house. The gate drive optocouplers has an enhanced construction with superior thermal conductivity, making it suitable for isolation needs in automotive, industrial inverters and power management applications over operating temperature from -40oC to 125oC. The ACPL-312T improves CMR performance by using a detector IC with an optically transparent Faraday shield, which diverts the capacitively coupled current away from the sensitive IC circuitry. It offers high CMR (min 25 kV/μs @ VCM = 1500V) which makes it excellent for noise elimination and provides under voltage lockout (UVLO) for additional product protection.

The ACPL-312T device contains an AlGaAs LED. The LED is optically coupled to an integrated circuit with a power output stage. This automotive optocoupler is ideally suited for driving power IGBTs and MOSFETs used in automotive motor control inverter and DC-DC converters applications. The ACPL-312T contains an under voltage lockout (UVLO) feature that is designed to protect the IGBT under fault conditions which cause the ACPL-312T supply voltage (equivalent to the fully-charged IGBT gate voltage) to drop below a level necessary to keep the IGBT in a low resistance state.

The high operating voltage range of the output stage provides the drive voltages required by gate controlled devices. The voltage and current supplied by these optocouplers make them ideally suited for directly driving IGBTs with ratings up to 1200 V/100 A. For IGBTs with higher ratings, the ACPL-312T series can be used to drive a discrete power stage which drives the IGBT gate. The ACPL-312T includes a Propagation Delay Difference (PDD) specification intended to help designers minimize “dead time” in their power inverter designs.

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