Modern cars feature numerous advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Safety-critical ADAS applications must be designed for high availability, and automated driving functions are even more challenging to implement as they introduce fail operational requirements. The impact on the primary power distribution is the introduction of safety elements to guarantee fast failure isolation in less than 100 µs. Since fuses cannot meet this requirement, partial or full electrification of the primary power distribution needs to be considered. In addition, modern cars have an increasing number of applications to improve driver and passenger comfort.
The power distribution system supplies all of these applications, enabling energy to flow from a source to various loads in a car, in a very secure and controlled manner. One of the biggest challenges for designers today is to reduce the cost, length, weight, and complexity of the wire harness. To address these needs, Infineon Technologies AG introduces the EiceDRIVER 2ED2410-EM, a smart high-side MOSFET gate driver for 12 V/ 24 V automotive applications with integrated wire protection. This gate driver is an ideal match for Infineon’s 40/ 60 V OptiMOS MOSFETs.
This gate driver features two output channels for two different MOSFET structures, either a back-to-back common source plus a pre-charging path or a common drain. The enhanced driver capability to turn on and turn-off allows it to easily scale up the number of MOSFETs to manage larger load currents. Even up to several hundred amps, it ensures a fast switch-off within microseconds while classical fuses only disconnect in the range of milliseconds. Furthermore, this device can be operated down to 3 V. Such low voltages can occur in a short circuit until the faulty load is disconnected.
The EiceDRIVER 2ED2410-EM has three analog measurement interfaces and four integrated comparators for protection purposes. This enables flexible and versatile solutions for various requirements including adjustable I-t wire protection, overcurrent protection, over/under voltage protection, and others. Currents can be measured in both directions and the drain-source-voltage is monitored to identify conditions such as an open load at the output.
The adjustable wire protection feature helps select the smallest possible wire cross section for the corresponding load behavior. In the past, wires had to be designed with a diameter margin of up to 30 percent compared to the actual requirements, in order to consider the tolerance and aging effect of classical fuses. To minimize the discharge of the battery when the vehicle is parked, the device comes with a very low quiescent current consumption of only a few tenths of µA.
The 2ED2410-EM is in production now. It is PRO-SIL ISO26262-ready and comes with a safety application note to support the evaluation of hardware elements according to ISO 26262. To accelerate the design-in process, different evaluation boards are available for order including EB 2ED2410 3M.
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