When parasitic inductances are introduced by non-ideal PCB layout and long package leads (e.g. TO-220 and TO-247 type packages), there could be ringing in the gate-source drive voltage of the power transistor during high di/dt and dv/dt switching. If the ringing is over the threshold voltage, there is the risk of unintended turn-on and even shoot-through. Applying a negative bias on the gate drive is a popular way to keep such ringing below the threshold. Below are a few examples of implementing negative gate drive bias.

Figure 9-2 shows the first example with negative bias turn-off on the channel-A driver using a Zener diode on the isolated power supply output stage. The negative bias is set by the Zener diode voltage. If the isolated power supply, V_A, is equal to 25 V, the turn-off voltage will be –5.1 V and turn-on voltage will be 25 V -– 5.1 V ≈ 20 V. The channel-B driver circuit is the same as channel-A, therefore, this configuration needs two power supplies for a half-bridge configuration, and there will be steady state power consumption from R_Z.