Due to the strong drive strength of UCC21710, careful considerations must be taken in PCB design. Below are some key points:

• The driver should be placed as close as possible to the power semiconductor to reduce the parasitic inductance of the gate loop on the PCB traces
• The decoupling capacitors of the input and output power supplies should be placed as close as possible to the power supply pins. The peak current generated at each switching transient can cause high dI/dt and voltage spike on the parasitic inductance of PCB traces
• The driver COM pin should be connected to the Kelvin connection of SiC MOSFET source or IGBT emitter. If the power device does not have a split Kelvin source or emitter, the COM pin should be connected as close as possible to the source or emitter terminal of the power device package to separate the gate loop from the high power switching loop
• Use a ground plane on the input side to shield the input signals. The input signals can be distorted by the high frequency noise generated by the output side switching transients. The ground plane provides a low-inductance filter for the return current flow
• If the gate driver is used for the low side switch which the COM pin connected to the dc bus negative, use the ground plane on the output side to shield the output signals from the noise generated by the switch node; if the gate driver is used for the high side switch, which the COM pin is connected to the switch node, ground plane is not recommended
• If ground plane is not used on the output side, separate the return path of the OC and AIN ground loop from the gate loop ground which has large peak source and sink current
• No PCB trace or copper is allowed under the gate driver. A PCB cutout is recommended to avoid any noise coupling between the input and output side which can contaminate the isolation barrier