
Application
Notes
C-60
C
ONTROL
I
NTEGRATED
C
IRCUIT
D
ESIGNERS’
M
ANUAL
International Rectifier Control ICs are monolithic
power integrated circuits capable of driving low-side and
high-side MOSFETs or IGBTs from logic level, ground
referenced inputs.
They provide offset voltage capabili-
ties up to 600 VDC and, unlike driver transformers, can
provide super-clean waveforms of any duty cycle 0 -
99%.
The IR215X series is a recent addition to the Control
IC family and, in addition to the above features, these
devices have a front end similar in function to the
CMOS 555 timer IC.
These drivers provide the designer with self-oscillating
or synchronized oscillation functions merely with the
addition of external R
T
and C
T
components (Figure 2).
They also have internal circuitry which provides a nomi-
nal 1.2 μs dead time between outputs and alternating
high side and low side outputs for driving half-bridge
power switches.
When used in the self oscillating mode the frequency
of oscillation is given by:
f
=
+
1
1.4 (R
75 ) C
T
T
(1)
The three available self-oscillating drivers are IR2151,
IR2152 and IR2155.
IR2155
has larger output buffers that switch a 1000 pF
capacitive load with t
= 80 ns and t
= 40 ns. It has mi-
cro power start-up and 150 ohm RT source.
IR2151
has t
and t
f
of 100 ns and 50 ns and functions
similarly to IR2155.
IR2152
is identical to IR2151 but with phase inversion
from R
T
to L
O
.
L
SYNC
V
CC
R
T
C
T
V
B
HO
V
S
LO
COM
IR2151
+
R
T
C
T
C
1
C
2
Figure 2.
Electronic ballast using IR2151 driver
IR2151 and 2152 have 75 ohm R
source (Equation 1.)
These drivers are intended to be supplied from the rec-
tified AC input voltage and for that reason they are de-
signed for minimum quiescent current and have a 15V
internal shunt regulator so that a single dropping resistor
can be used from the DC rectified bus voltage.
Referring again to Figure 2, note the synchronizing ca-
pability of the driver. The two back-to-back diodes in se-
ries with the lamp circuit are effectively a zero crossing
detector for the lamp current. Before the lamp strikes, the
resonant circuit consists of L, C1 and C2 all in series.
C1 is a DC blocking capacitor with a low reactance, so
that the resonant circuit is effectively L and C2. The volt-
age across C2 is magnified by the Q factor of L and C2 at
resonance and strikes the lamp.
After the lamp strikes, C
is effectively shorted by the
lamp voltage drop and the frequency of the resonant cir-
cuit now depends upon L and C1.
This causes a shift to a lower resonant frequency during
normal operation, again synchronized by sensing the zero
crossing of the AC current and using the resultant voltage to
control the driver oscillator.
In addition to the driver quiescent current, there are two
other components of DC supply current that are a func-
tion of the actual application circuit:
1) current due to charging the input capacitance of the
power switches
2) current due to charging and discharging the junction
isolation capacitance of the International Rectifier gate
driver.
Both components of current are charge-related and
therefore follow the rules:
Q = CV
(2)