Gate Driver Design Consideration and Optimization for Noninverting Buck-Boost Converters

Inhalt:
Noninverting 4-switch Buck-boost converter has been widely adopted for DC-DC power conversion in USB power delivery applications to support power flow at a much higher level. This paper presents the gate driver design optimization method for this converter. Although the dv/dt induced false turn-on issue in buck converters has been well documented, errors can still be made when designers simply apply the parameters of a buck converter gate driver directly to those of a noninverting buck-boost converter. Failure mode of the converter is analyzed and duality is used to explain the issues on the buck and boost phase respectively. Besides, both light load and heavy load conditions have been discussed. In the end, several practical solutions are provided and verified by simulation and experimental results.