The LM5146 high-side and low-side gate drivers incorporate short propagation delays, adaptive dead-time control and low-impedance output stages capable of delivering large peak currents with very fast rise and fall times to facilitate rapid turnon and turnoff transitions of the power MOSFETs. Very high di/dt can cause unacceptable ringing if the trace lengths and impedances are not well controlled.

Minimization of stray or parasitic gate loop inductance is key to optimizing gate drive switching performance, whether it be series gate inductance that resonates with MOSFET gate capacitance or common source inductance (common to gate and power loops) that provides a negative feedback component opposing the gate drive command, thereby increasing MOSFET switching times. The following loops are important:

• Loop 2: high-side MOSFET, Q₁. During the high-side MOSFET turnon, high current flows from the bootstrap (boot) capacitor through the gate driver and high-side MOSFET, and back to the negative terminal of the boot capacitor through the SW connection. Conversely, to turn off the high-side MOSFET, high current flows from the gate of the high-side MOSFET through the gate driver and SW, and back to the source of the high-side MOSFET through the SW trace. Refer to loop #2 of Figure 11-1.
• Loop 3: low-side MOSFET, Q₂. During the low-side MOSFET turn-on, high current flows from the VCC decoupling capacitor through the gate driver and low-side MOSFET, and back to the negative terminal of the capacitor through ground. Conversely, to turn off the low-side MOSFET, high current flows from the gate of the low-side MOSFET through the gate driver and GND, and back to the source of the low-side MOSFET through ground. Refer to loop #3 of Figure 11-1.

TI strongly recommends following circuit layout guidelines when designing with high-speed MOSFET gate drive circuits.

1. Connections from gate driver outputs, HO and LO, to the respective gate of the high-side or low-side MOSFET must be as short as possible to reduce series parasitic inductance. Use 0.65 mm (25 mils) or wider traces. Use a via or vias, if necessary, of at least 0.5 mm (20 mils) diameter along these traces. Route HO and SW gate traces as a differential pair from the LM5146 to the high-side MOSFET, taking advantage of flux cancellation.
2. Minimize the current loop path from the VCC and BST pins through their respective capacitors as these provide the high instantaneous current, up to 3.5 A, to charge the MOSFET gate capacitances. Specifically, locate the bootstrap capacitor, C_BST, close to the BST and SW pins of the LM5146 to minimize the area of loop #2 associated with the high-side driver. Similarly, locate the VCC capacitor, C_VCC, close to the VCC and PGND pins of the LM5146 to minimize the area of loop #3 associated with the low-side driver.
3. Placing a 2-Ω to 10-Ω resistor in series with the boot capacitor, as shown in Figure 9-16, slows down the high-side MOSFET turn-on transition, serving to reduce the voltage ringing and peak amplitude at the SW node at the expense of increased MOSFET turnon power loss.