Increasing the switching frequencies in power converters allows for the reduction of the energy storage and passive components in the converter circuitry. This reduction has improved the power system by reducing size, weight and improving layout options for the circuit elements. The downside to increased switching frequency is the added stress to the gate driver and supporting circuitry. To account for these increased requirements, a robust driver with high current, fast switching characteristics and small form factor are important for optimization when increasing switching frequency.

The performance metrics of the gate driver to take into consideration include the propagation delays of the driver channels, the delay matching specification with respect to both channels, and the rise and fall times of the output signals. Drivers with high drive current, such as the UCC273x1A(-Q1) with peaks of 3.7A source and 4.5A sink current enable the ability for fast rise and fall times. With a rating of 270ns rising and 160ns falling for a 100nF load with thresholds of 3V and 9V, the UCC273x1A(-Q1) is an excellent choice. Fast rise and fall times are desirable for reducing switching losses that occur during switching transitions. When looking at lower current gate drivers like the UCC2728x(-Q1), the rise and fall times are 330ns and 23ns, respectively, under the same conditions. In addition to rise and fall times, the propagation delays and delay matching specs are important for determining how fast and how accurately the gate driver reacts to inputs from the controller. For the UCC273x1A(-Q1), the propagation delay and delay matching specs are 20ns and 4ns, respectively, which provides fast switching characteristics. The lower current UCC2728x(-Q1) offers faster propagation delay and shorter delay matching specs with 16ns and 1ns respectively. But, in high efficiency demanding applications, the rise and fall times play a critical role in minimizing switching losses, so the UCC273x1A(-Q1) is a better choice in that scenario.