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  • Daniel Sting Martinez-Padron1,*,
  • Nicolas Patin1 and
  • Eric Monmasson2

Reviewer 1: Anonymous Reviewer 2: Anonymous Reviewer 3: Anonymous

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents the performance of gate driving based on a new figure of merit. While the proposed method shows potential, certain aspects require refinement and additional clarification, as highlighted by the subsequent comments and questions.

1. The authors frequently use the expression "it is shown that" in many places throughout the article. Please revise the paper to eliminate this phrase.

2. To enhance readability, it is recommended to present the novelty of the study as bullet points.

3. Figure 4 is not referenced in the body of the paper and is placed in the middle of a sentence.

4. Figures 6 and 7 are also positioned in the middle of sentences.

5. Figure 16 should be more thoroughly analyzed or removed from the paper, as should Figure 15. The increase in power losses with the rising resistance of Rg is a well-known dependency.

6. The authors did not provide results of EMI measurements, especially in comparison with standard methods used to control transistors. Please consider expanding the article to include these studies.

7. The number of cited references is insufficient. Please augment the paper with a more in-depth analysis of the state of the art.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

We sincerely thank the Reviewer for their thorough review of our manuscript and for the excellent suggestions that we received. We did our best to address all the comments of the Reviewer. 

  1. The authors frequently use the expression "it is shown that" in many places throughout the article. Please revise the paper to eliminate this phrase.

Answer : Thank you for review our manuscript. The expression "it is shown that" was eliminated in the manuscript.

  1. To enhance readability, it is recommended to present the novelty of the study as bullet points.

Answer : Thank you for this suggestion. The main contributions of this study were summarized as bullet points.

  1. Figure 4 is not referenced in the body of the paper and is placed in the middle of a sentence.

Answer : Sorry for our inattention. Figure 4 is now referenced in the manuscript.

  1. Figures 6 and 7 are also positioned in the middle of sentences.

Answer : Thank your for this comment. The figures 6 and 7 were placed in the appropriate location.

  1. Figure 16 should be more thoroughly analyzed or removed from the paper, as should Figure 15. The increase in power losses with the rising resistance of Rg is a well-known dependency.

Answer: We thank the Reviewer for having suggested this important point. Figure 15 was removed and replaced by the relationship between power losses and σt. Figure 16 was corrected and changed. The figure was enlarged to be clearer and the average spectra are now presented.

  1. The authors did not provide results of EMI measurements, especially in comparison with standard methods used to control transistors. Please consider expanding the article to include these studies.

Answer: Thank you for this suggestion. In this study, the attenuation level of the voltage frequency spectrum was used to evaluate the EMI reduction. Increasing the value of Rg also increases the switching duration and modify the cut-off frequency of the frequency spectrum. In Figure 18 of the revised version of the manuscript, we present the voltage frequency spectra at different values of Rg . In this figure,  it can be observed the different attenuation levels for each case.  Furthermore, it can be observed how the cutoff  frequency of each spectrum asymptote changes when the resistance Rg increases. Also, to complement these observations, an individual comparison of each average spectrum is presented in Figure 19. 4 different cases are compared with the one with the shortest switching duration (Rg=10). This allows us to see the impact of increasing the resistance in the cutoff frequency and attenuation in some frequency bands. We appreciate your comment. Since performing more sophisticated tests takes time, for now the observations in the frequency spectrum presented in this study are an approximation of the EMI generated. We consider in the future doing more sophisticated tests to measure EMI to extend this study.

  1. The number of cited references is insufficient. Please augment the paper with a more in-depth analysis of the state of the art.

Answer: The references added in the manuscript are listed below:

  1. R. Zhang,W. Chen, Y. Zhou, Z. Shi, R. Yan and X. Yang, Mathematical Modeling of EMI Spectrum Envelope Based on Switching Transient Behavior. In IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 2497-2515, April 2022.
  2. C. Bi, R. Lu and H. Li, Prediction of Electromagnetic Interference Noise in SiC MOSFET Module. In IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 853-857, May 2019.
  3. J. Meng, W. Ma, Q. Pan, L. Zhang and Z. Zhao, "Multiple Slope Switching Waveform Approximation to Improve ConductedEMI Spectral Analysis of Power Converters," in IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 742-751, Nov. 2006.
  4. S. Mohsenzade, A High-Voltage Series-Stacked IGBT Switch With Output Pulse Shaping Capability to Reduce EMI Generation. In IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 559-568, April 2022.
  5. S. Walder, X. Yuan, I. Laird and J. J. O. Dalton, Identification of the temporal source of frequency domain characteristics of SiC MOSFET based power converter waveforms. 2016 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), Milwaukee, WI. USA, 2016, pp. 1-8.
  6. Ali N. Akansu, Richard A. Haddad, Chapter 5 - Time-Frequency Representations, Editors: Ali N. Akansu, Richard A. Haddad. Multiresolution Signal Decomposition (Second Edition),Academic Press,2001, Pages 331-390, ISBN 9780120471416.

Minor editing of English language required.

Answer: Thank your for this comment. English grammar was revised.

All changes are marked with yellow in the PDF file "Manuscript_revised.pdf"

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is generally well-written and I do not have any major comments or concerns.

I just have one comment: Please improve Figure 16. The x-axis must have finer gradations to see the frequencies of interest clearly. 

Author Response

We sincerely thank the Reviewer for their thorough review of our manuscript and for the excellent suggestions that we received. We did our best to address all the comments of the Reviewer. 

 

I just have one comment: Please improve Figure 16. The x-axis must have finer gradations to see the frequencies of interest clearly. 

Answer: Thank you for review our manuscript. Figure 16 was modified. The figure was enlarged to be clearer and the average spectra are now presented.

All changes are marked with yellow in the PDF file "Manuscript_revised.pdf"

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have presented a FOM to assess the performance of a standard driver. This work is intriguing and holds promise. However, I believe the manuscript requires additional investigations and modifications to enhance its overall quality.

1. The last two curves in Figure 16, corresponding to the cases Rg=120 Ω and Rg=270 Ω, appear identical. The authors need to carefully review this issue as it is a crucial aspect for scientific paper.

2. Temporal dispersion (σt) and frequential dispersion (σω) are pivotal factors in this work. Could the authors provide more detailed explanations regarding the physical meaning of σt and σω? How do their values impact the driver's performance?

3. What is the purpose of preprocessing the switching waveforms? Can the filtering stage improve the SNR?

4. In line 191, what do hDr and hDf represent, and why are they equal to 0.01?

5. Could the authors elucidate how the theoretical values listed in Table 2 were obtained?

Given the points raised, it is advisable to conduct a thorough revision of the manuscript before considering it for publication in Electronics.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We sincerely thank the Reviewer for their thorough review of our manuscript and for the excellent suggestions that we received. We did our best to address all the comments of the Reviewer. We firmly believe that the Reviewer’s comments and suggestions have significantly improved this manuscript. 

  1. The last two curves in Figure 16, corresponding to the cases Rg=120 Ω and Rg=270 Ω, appear identical. The authors need to carefully review this issue as it is a crucial aspect for scientific paper.

Answer: Thank you for review our manuscript. Sorry for our inattention.  Figure 16 was corrected and changed. The figure was enlarged to be clearer and the average spectra are now presented.

  1. Temporal dispersion (σt) and frequential dispersion (σω) are pivotal factors in this work. Could the authors provide more detailed explanations regarding the physical meaning of σt and σω? How do their values impact the driver's performance?

Answer: We thank the Reviewer for having suggested this important point. The explanation was extended in the introduction and definitions section. The temporal dispersion indicates the duration of a signal and this value is inversely proportional to the width of its frequential content, according to the Heisenberg-Gabor inequality. For instance, for an Dirac function has an infinitesimal duration and extremely large spectral content.

For power electronics switching waveforms, the spectral content is determined by the duration and shape of switching edges. Then, the smaller the switching duration (σt) is, the larger the spectral content (σω) becomes. In this sense, a driver can reduce the EMI if it shapes the swicthing edges and/or it increases the switching duration. However, increasing the switching duration implies increasing switching losses. For this reason a driver must guarantee an adequate trade-off between power losses and the EMI generation, which can be charaterized with the proposed FOM.

  1. What is the purpose of preprocessing the switching waveforms? Can the filtering stage improve the SNR?

Answer: Thank you for your question. The preprocessing stage is included to perform an adequate extraction of the switching patterns for rising and falling edges. Since the switching pattern is obtained by the derivative of the rising and falling edges, the presence of noise becomes an important factor. Therefore, yes the filtering stage improves the SNR.

  1. In line 191, what do hDr and hDf represent, and why are they equal to 0.01?

Answer: Thank you for your question. hDr and HDf indicate a proportion of a vector size. For the extraction of the rising a falling edge, their vectors associated Df and Dr has a size NDr and NDf  that are a proportion of size of the switching waveform vector N. For example NDr =N* hDr, when hDr=0.01 means the size of the vector that contains the rising edge is a 1% of the size of switching waveform vector.

  1. Could the authors elucidate how the theoretical values listed in Table 2 were obtained?

Answer: Thank you for your question. First, standard triangular and Gaussian function were generated using Matlab. Then, using the equations listed in section 2, σt and σω were calculated. Finally, this values were used  to calculate the FOM for each function. This explanation was improved in section 4.

 

 

All changes are marked with yellow in the PDF file "Manuscript_revised.pdf"

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript was revised in accordance with the Reviewer suggestions.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed my concerns with the original manuscript. The revised manuscript is ready for publication.