Intelligent means of vehicle monitoring and protection are necessary due to the full electrification of vehicles and the stringent safety requirements that vehicle manufacturers are held to. The electronics systems and components must remain functional throughout the vehicle's lifetime in order to maintain safe operation. The traction inverter is vital to the drive system and includes protection and monitoring auxiliary circuits to prevent system-level failure modes such as over- and under-torque, unintentional motor commutation, or motor shutdown. This design guide reviews HEV/EV architectures, the failure modes of the traction inverter system, and how the gate driver and surrounding circuits can be used to enhance the reliability of the system. Texas Instruments’ UCC217xx-Q1 family of reinforced isolated gate drivers have integrated protection and monitoring features that simplify the design of high-power traction inverter systems. This family of drivers is developed under the TI Functional Safety Quality-Managed process. Such features include fast over-current protection or short-circuit protection, isolated temperature and voltage sensing, and under voltage lockout. Additionally, the advanced feature UCC5870-Q1 basic isolated gate driver includes integrated SPI-programmable diagnostic, protection and monitoring functions and is developed under the Functional Safety-Compliant TI process. For more information regarding the categories of TI's safety chips, visit TI's Functional Safety web page.

This section describes the key components of an HEV/EV automotive powertrain system.