2010 Asia-Pacific International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, April 12 - 16, 2010, Beijing, China

EMI Emission From Gate Drive Circuit of

Boost Converter
Guang Ling, Henglin Chen
College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, China
henglin@zju.edu.cn

Abstract---The voltage between drain and source of drive circuit, and try to reduce it. The EMI noise
MOSFET during switching actions in Boost converter, in
most cases, is considered as the major source of produced by the drive of MOSFET is shown in section II;
electromagnetic interference (EMI). However, the drive
section III presents a detailed explanation to the
circuit of MOSFET, when along with an overshoot, which
commonly exists, can also be another important EMI source. formation of the noise; and then the solution to reduce the
This paper analyzes the principle of the overshoot of drive
voltage, and then proposes a method to suppress excess EMI noise is proposed and testified in section IV; and in final,
emission by eliminating the drive overshoot for Boost section V concludes the paper.
converter. The effectiveness of the EMI suppression method
is testified by experiments.
II. EMI NOISE CAUSED BY MOSFET DRIVE CIRCUIT
Keywords: modeling; overshoot; EMI; suppression
The circuit diagram of Boost converter and the line
I. INTRODUCTION impedance stabilization network (LISN) is shown in Fig.
1. The EMI noise can be measured by the LISN through
EMI issues become increasingly important to the power
such a connection. In order to analyze and measure EMI
electronics device because of their influences to the
of Boost converter, including the EMI emission from the
reliability and accuracy of the system [1]. The conducted
drive circuit of MOSFET, a prototype of Boost converter
EMI noise can cause polluted signals into other electronic
with fixed duty cycle of 40% is built. The input for the
circuits and equipments. The switching actions of the
main circuit is 220 V AC source, and the load for the
MOSFET and diode are the primary sources of the
prototype is 2 k Ω . The power supply of the control unit
conducted EMI [2-5], thus it is significant to research the
is provided by a 15 V DC source, which is isolated with
EMI characteristic of the switching signals. As for Boost
the AC supply so that the EMI emission of the drive
converter, many papers, such as [6-8], have conducted
circuit can be measured separately.
researches on the EMI characteristics and put forward
some methods to reduce EMI noise. For example, [7]
investigated the EMI in Boost PFC converter in detail
including the EMI noise source and its propagation paths.
Many of them, such as [6-9], focused on the voltage
between drain and source of MOSFET and considered it
as the only major source of EMI noise. In fact, the drive
of MOSFET also has large impact on EMI emission, and
it is well known that we can slow down the rising and
falling process of VDS (the voltage between drain and Fig. 1 Boost converter connected with LISN

source) of MOSFET to suppress EMI by drive control.

However, the contribution of the drive circuit itself to The EMI emissions of the prototype of the Boost
EMI emission can not be ignored. The main objective of converter with 220 V AC input and with 0 V AC input to
the paper is to explore the mechanism of EMI caused by

978-1-4244-5623-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 226

the main circuit, are measured respectively, and the
results are presented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 3 MOSFET drive voltage

If MOSFET is removed, the overshoot of the drive

disappears as well. Here the MOSFET is equivalent to a
capacitor across the drive output and the ground. In fact,
similar overshoot is also observed by replacing the
MOSFET with a capacitor. Hereby we obtain an
equivalent circuit for the gate drive circuit, as is shown in
Fig. 2 Measured EMI emissions corresponding to with and without AC
Fig. 4, where L1 and L3 are the stray inductance of power
input for main circuit of the prototype
supply line connected between DC source and the control
The EMI noise corresponding to with 220 V AC input is unit, and R1, R2, R3 are parasitic resistances, and M2 and
produced by both main circuit and the control unit, M3 compose the push-pull circuit for drive voltage, and
namely the gate drive circuit; while the EMI noise V3 is the control signal, and C3 represents the gate
corresponding to with 0 V AC input is produced only by capacitor of MOSFET.
the gate drive circuit. As is illustrated in Fig.2, when the
input for the main circuit turns from 220 V to 0 V, the
EMI emission below 10 MHz almost keeps the same level.
That is to say, the gate drive circuit is also an important
source of EMI noise. It should be noted that in our
experiment, the EMI emission between 10 MHz and 30
MHz is mostly contributed by the main circuit of Boost
converter, and the gate drive circuit contributes only a
little. Fig. 4 Equivalent circuit of drive output

III. MECHANISM OF THE NOISE SOURCE There are two states as V3 switches up and down. When
V3 is in high level, M2 turns on and the equivalent circuit
In order to discover the mechanism of the EMI noise
is shown in Fig. 5; and when V3 is in low level, M3 turns
generated by gate drive circuit, we measured the
on and the equivalent circuit is shown in Fig.6. There are
waveform of drive, which is the voltage between gate and
two transient processes when V3 switches up and down,
source of MOSFET. The measured result is presented in
and the transition can be described by Fig.5 and Fig.6,
Fig.3, and the result shows that there is an overshoot in
respectively.
the rising edge. The overshoot of the drive voltage
commonly exists but is undesirable, because it will not
only increases the voltage stress and ringing, but also
brings some EMI noise to the whole system. Therefore,
further investigation is performed to explore the
formation of such an overshoot.
Fig.5 V3 switches up Fig.6 V3 switches down

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In Fig.6, when the switch turns on, it is simply a
discharge process of gate capacitor C3 and will not
produce the overshoot. While in Fig.5, since the
capacitance, the inductances and the resistances are
connected in series, using Laplace transformation, a
simplified circuit is obtained in Fig. 7.
According to the discussion above, when the drive control
signal switches from low to high, it is very possible to
bring an overshoot; and when it drops down, there is no
overshoot.
In order to testify the discussion above, a simulation is
conducted for the drive circuit. We extract the parasitic
parameters from the prototype, and the circuit used to
simulate in Pspice software is shown in Fig.8.

L1 R1 D1
1 2
100nH 1 M2 MUR140
R2 M1 R5
15V V3

1
R4
1
V1 C5 M3 D2 C7 1k
2.7k

2
L3 R3
1 2
Fig. 7 Equivalent circuit when the drive gets high 100nH 1
0

The expression of the drive voltage can be induced from Fig.8 Simulation circuit in Pspice

Fig. 7, that is,

After the simulation, the waveform of the drive voltage
U
1
1 s+R can be obtained, as shown in Fig. 9. It is obvious that
U c ( s) = ⋅ sC =U ⋅( − 2 L ) (1)
s sL + R + 1 s s +R s+ 1 there is an overshoot in the rising edge of the simulated
sC L LC
drive voltage, which agrees well with the measured result
L shown in Fig.3.
If R < 2 , U c ( s ) can also be written as follows,
C
25
1 s+R
U c (s) = U ⋅ ( − 2L 20
2
s (s + R ) +1
2
−R 2 (2)
2L LC 4L
Voltage/V

15
R
− 2L )
(s + R )2 + 1 −R
2 10
2
2L LC 4L
According to (2), using inverse Laplace transformation, 5
we can get the drive voltage in time domain, that is, 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
U c (t ) = L−1[U c ( s )] Time/s
x 10
-5

−
R
t R −
R
t
(3)
= U ⋅ (1 − e 2L
⋅ sin ωt − ⋅e 2L
⋅ cos ωt ) Fig. 9 Simulated result of drive voltage
2 Lω
The overshoot of the drive voltage has dramatic influence
2
where ω =12
−R (4) on EMI emission, and it is considered as a serious EMI
LC 4 L2
noise source in drive circuit of the Boost converter.
A similar expression can be derived as
Meanwhile, the harmonics of the trapezoidal waveform of
R
− t 1 the drive voltage make contributions to EMI emission of
Uc (t) = U ⋅ (1− e 2L
⋅ sin(ωt +ϕ)) (5)
R2C drive circuit. In this paper, we focus on the overshoot of
1− the drive voltage. In the following section, a method is
4L
proposed to eliminate the overshoot of drive voltage.
From (5), the drive voltage will oscillate as long as:
L
R<2 (6)
C

228
 IV. SOLUTION TO REDUCE THE EMI NOISE between the situations with and without the 4.7uF
capacitor.
Here we try to reduce the EMI noise from drive circuit of
Boost converter by eliminating the overshoot of drive
voltage. According to section III, overshoot will not
appear if the expression (6) is not satisfied, which can be Without Capacitor

obtained by changing the value of circuit parameters. A

simple and practical way is to add a capacitor with
relatively large value (4.7uF here) on the port of DC
source in the control unit. The capacitor is parallel
connected with capacitor C5, as is shown in Fig. 8. This With 4.7uF capacitor
capacitor increases the equivalent value of C in (6), thus connected

we have R > 2 L , and consequently the oscillation will

C
not appear. After adding the capacitor, we also conduct
Fig. 12 EMI spectrum comparison between with and without capacitor
simulation and experiment to acquire the drive voltage.
when AC input is 0 V for main circuit
The simulated and measured results of drive waveform
are shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 respectively. To testify the effect of adding such a capacitor on total
EMI emission of Boost converter, we also measure the
16 EMI emissions of the prototype of Boost converter when
14
the AC input is 220 V for its main circuit, the
12
measurement results are shown in Fig. 13.
10
Voltage/V

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-5
Time/s x 10

Fig. 10 Simulated result of MOSFET drive

Fig. 13 EMI spectrum comparison between with and without capacitor

when AC input is 220 V for main circuit
Fig. 11 MOSFET drive after adding a capacitor

According to Fig. 13, a significant improvement is

Compare the simulated result and the measured one, the
overshoot disappear in both of them. Then test the EMI
spectrum, an obvious improvement is observed after the
capacitor is added, as shown in Fig. 12. Pay attention to
the range between 1 MHz and 10 MHz in the EMI
spectrum diagram, an obvious distinction is observed
observed after the capacitor is added when the main
circuit of Boost converter is on work. Therefore, the
effectiveness of taking such a measure to reduce EMI is
testified.

229
 V. CONCLUSION [2] D. Divan and B. Boroyevich, “Future Converters, Circuits, and

System Integration,” Proceedings of FEPPCON III Workshop,

The gate drive circuit contributes a lot to EMI emission
Skukuza, Kruger Park South Africa, July 1998, pp. B:7-B: 13.
from Boost converter, and the overshoot of MOSFET
[3] F. Lin and D.Y. Chen, “Reduction of Supply EMI Emission by
drive voltage is a serious EMI source. The overshoot of
Switching Frequency Modulation,” IEEE Trans. on P. E., Vol.
MOSFET drive voltage is caused by RLC oscillation in
9, No. 1, Jan. 1994, pp. 132-137.
drive circuit. A method is proposed to eliminate the
oscillation and the overshoot of MOSFET drive voltage. [4] C. R. Paul, “Introduction to Electromagnetic Compatibility”, John

After the overshoot of MOSFET drive voltage is Wiley, New York, 1992.

eliminated, the EMI emission from drive circuit is [5] M. J. Nave, “Power Line Filter Design for Switched-Mode”,

reduced, and the EMI performance of the whole Boost Power Supplies, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991.

converter is improved. It can be deduced that the [6] E. M. Hertz, S. Busquets-Monge, D. Boroyevich, M. Arpilliere
overshoots of drive voltages in other power converters are and H. Boutillier, “Analysis of the tradeoffs between thermal
also EMI sources, the proposed method can be used to behavior and EMI noise levels in a Boost PFC circuit,” IAS 2001,
suppress EMI in other converters as well. pp. 2460 –2465.

[7] Liyu Yang, Bing Lu, Wei Dong, Zhiguo Lu, Ming Xu, F. C. Lee
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and W. G. Odendaal, “Modeling and Characterization of a 1KW

CCM PFC Converter for Conducted EMI Prediction”, IEEE 2004,

This work has been supported by Natural Science
pp. 763 –769.
Foundation of China under Grant 50807047.
[8] X. Wu; M.H. Pong, Z.Y. Lu and Z.M. Qian, “Novel Boost PFC

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