Electronic – MOSFET DRIVER- HIGH side vs LOW side

chargedrivermosfet

I am trying to understand mosfet drivers in general, no specific part. And I am encountering low side and high side drivers. My question is that if for example: I have a N channel mosfet as a high side switch and another identical N channel mosfet as a low side switch. Why do I need a different driver for each? Ultimately you want to charge gate capacitance quicklyand since they are both N channel what is the difference of how I need to charge it if its high side or low side?

Best Answer

A low side FET driver's circuitry is referenced to ground. Therefore it's easy to interface to controllers or even logic signals.

A high side N-FET has its source flying up and down between ground and the drain voltage, maybe higher with parasitic ringing. So does the source reference connection on the driver.

So a high side driver generally has level shifting circuitry that allows you to control Vgs even though the source is at high voltage. It may also have features to help with bootstrapping the high voltage, or desat protection, etc.

For N-channel switch applications the high side driver may have a charge pump built in to allow it to drive the gate above the source.