Microchip PCIM 2024: on-board charger design made easy

To learn more about this product, Electronic Specifier spoke with Clayton Pillion, Vice-president of Silicon Carbide at Microchip, at the Microchip booth.

The demand for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) has increased as the focus on decarbonisation calls for sustainable emission reduction methods. A key component in EVs is the on-board charger, responsible for converting AC power to DC power to charge the high-voltage battery. Microchip has targeted this specific need with its new OBC solution.

Explained Pillion: “At the core of this solution is an all-in-one-place solution. Microchip is offering both the firmware and design parts of the solution to enable designers to customise to their own specifications.

“On top of this, the solution is built to be highly modular and customisable, with added quality of life features such as a built-in low voltage power mode, and the support and power stages in one place.

“Finally, the OBC meets ASIL A and B safety levels.”

Here is an overview of the key components in this OBC solution:

• The dsPIC33C DSC is AEC-Q100 qualified and features a high-performance DSP core, high-resolution Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) modules and high-speed Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs), making it optimal for power conversion applications. It is functional, safety ready and supports the AUTOSAR ecosystem.
• The MCP14C1 isolated SiC gate driver is AEC-Q100 qualified and is offered in SOIC-8 wide-body package supporting reinforced isolation and SOIC-8 narrow-body supporting basic isolation. Compatible with the dsPIC33 DSC, the MCP14C1 is optimised to drive mSiC MOSFETs via Undervoltage Lockout (UVLO) for VGS = 18V gate drive split output terminals, which simplifies implementation and eliminates the need for an external diode. Galvanic isolation is achieved by leveraging capacitive isolation technology, which results in robust noise immunity and high Common-Mode Transient Immunity (CMTI).
• The mSiC MOSFET in an AEC-Q101-qualified D2PAK-7L XL surface mount package includes five parallel source sense leads to reduce switching losses, increase current capability and decrease inductance. This device supports 400V and 800V battery voltages.