Electronic – IRS2153(1) half bridge giving irregular output

I have a suspicion that your problem might have to do with the bootstrap circuit, as detailed in section 5.3 of the data sheet. Some evidence leads to this conclusion:

• You are likeley using larger MOSFETs than in the original design (because your overall power is greater), thus you are dealing with a higher gate charge, resulting in a higher current that must be delivered by the integrated bootstrap circuit. It could be that the bootstrap circuit dissipates more power than it was designed for and fails, sometimes resulting in a bad output driver for the high side MOSFET, sometimes taking the MOSFET with it. Adding an external, fast and high-voltage bootstrap diode might help. Note that the calculation in Eq. 9 of sect. 5.3 uses the typical on-resistance of the integrated bootstrap circuit. It's a better idea to use the max. value from table 4 which is twice as high.

• Once the circuit goes into overload, you say that the frequency drops. During these prolonged on-times, the voltage across the external bootstrap capacitor might become too low to keep the high side MOSFET saturated, causing it to have a higher on-resistance, excessive losses and thermal overstress. However, in this case, it would be the high-side MOSFET that fails first. Check the voltage across the bootstrap capacitor. A bigger capacitor might help, but this will likely put more stress on the integrated bootstrap driver or the external diode that might be necessary anyway.

Another possibility could be that you are exceeding the maximum slew rates for the high-side driver. This might cause it to do weird things.

Concerning the negative spikes, an external protective clamping diode at each driver's output might help (K=Vout,HS; A=GND,LS and K=Vout,HS; A=GND,HS). Something as simple as a 1N4148 might be enough.

In addtion to the concerns brought up in the comments (incorrect P-FET polarity, no catch diode/MOSFET), I have some at-a-quick-glance concerns:

• The microcontroller won't be able to drive the gate of Q1 very hard (usually GPIO pins can only source a few milliamps) so your turn-on and turn-off will be very slow. This will limit how well your high-side switch will behave.

• You don't have a gate-to-source resistor on Q1, so you're solely dependent on the GPIO keeping the MOSFET on or off. If the GPIO pin goes high-impedance, the MOSFET may turn itself on if the gate picks up a charge from the environment.

• If your 70R P-channel gate resistor is solidly on (if Q1 is saturated), it's going to burn

  \$ D \cdot \dfrac{(16V)^2}{70 \Omega} = D \cdot 3.65W\$

  which is crazy high power since D is going to be high (input is close to output). Also, the 225mA or so that will flow will also be burned in Q1, which isn't healthy since it's a relatively small device.

  (You need \$V_{GS}\$ of around 4V to draw ~400mA through Q1, and you need \$V_{GS}\$ of -7.5V for 40A in Q4).

  • Your purely resistive feedback network is a bad idea. You really need some compensation and/or filtering. Your comparator will be hyper-fast and could react to switching noise, pickup, ripple, etc. - since you don't seem to be using an error amplifier with compensation to control the gain and phase, you're going to need some cap across R5 (and some luck).

  • You don't have any current monitoring or over-current protection in your power train.

  • You don't have any over-voltage protection in your power train.

  • You don't have any over-temperature protection in your power train.

  • You don't have input reverse-polarity protection and an input fuse in your power train. Big no-no, especially when the source is battery-based (big short-circuit sourcing capability).

This is a simpler project if you use an off-the-shelf analog synchronous buck controller. I don't understand why you would want to use the ATtiny for this.

That being said, this isn't a simple project by any stretch. Your schematic is largely incomplete and lacks basic safety protection that any power supply (especially ones that run at high power levels like yours) will need.

Think about your requirements, calculate all the losses, design in some protections and come back with rev. 2.