Will my gate driver work for this situation?

Question

This is my own design, I did a gate driver for the MOSFET. Would this design work, or should I instead use a gate driver IC?

Answer 1

Q2 is upside down and you're missing the rectification diode for your boost converter.

Apart from that, it should work, but not at high frequencies. (10kHz is probably fine.)

To extend the operating frequency range and generally improve the circuit, you could build something like this:

This circuit uses an additional inductor (L1) in the level shifter of the gate driver to provide a constant-current "boost" to the rising edge of the gate waveform. In this simulation, that yields a rise time of around 100ns from 0V to 10V on the gate, which is comparable to what gate driver ICs typically achieve. L1 does not need to carry much current (around 20mA), so it can be a tiny and cheap axial type. You can see the boosting action of L1 in the "LVLSHIFT" waveform.

Additionally, using BJTs rated for higher current (BC337/BC327) improves the switching time as well. Last but not least, increasing the main boost inductor (L2 in this schematic) to 220µH prevents the converter from going into discontinuous conduction mode.

Oh, and using a small-signal MOSFET (i.e. 2N7002) for the input stage also improves the switching speed. Make sure to choose one that supports whatever logic level you're using. If you're using a 5V PWM signal, then the 2N7002 shown in the schematic is fine.

I'd trust this circuit up to around 200kHz.

Alternatively, you can achieve a similar effect with a bootstrap capacitor if you want to save the additional inductor:

The downside of this variant is slightly increased power draw. At lower frequencies, you might want to increase the value of C2 to around 1µF.