Maxim Integrated MAX22701E isolated gate driver

The MAX22701E isolated gate driver, from Maxim Integrated Products, is useful for designers of high-voltage/high-power systems looking to improve power supply efficiency. It is claimed to offer the industry’s highest common-mode transient immunity (CMTI) of 300 kV/µs typical, which minimises large common-mode transients between the input and output to increase uptime in noisy environments.

Good driver propagation specs (35 ns typical) and propagation delay matching between the high- and low-side gate drivers (5 ns maximum) help to reduce the transistor’s dead time and energy losses. This, in turn, improves power efficiency up to four percentage points. In the 90% efficiency range, every percentage point in efficiency results in about a 10% improvement in power loss. For example, improving efficiency from 90–94% results in an approximately 30–40% reduction in wasted power (six vs 10 points of wasted power).

The driver IC is available in an 8-pin narrow body SOIC package (3.9 x 4.9 mm) with an extended temperature range of -40 to +125°C. It is intended for use in switchmode power supplies within industrial communication systems for solar power inverters, motor drives, electric cars, energy storage systems, uninterrupted power supplies, data farms and high-power/high-efficiency power supplies.