BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description and the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an intake-air heater system;
FIG. 2 is a schematic drawing of a power module of the circuit of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a schematic of a first embodiment of a gate driver module of the system of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a schematic of a second embodiment of a gate driver module of the system of FIG. 1;
FIG. 5 is a plan view of a protective housing and thermal mass for the power module of FIG. 2;
FIG. 6 is a plan view of the protective housing and thermal mass of FIG. 5 that includes the gate driver module of FIG. 4;
FIG. 7 is a timing chart showing an example of heater power as a function of time;
FIG. 8 is a schematic of a circuit for independently controlling rise and fall times of transistors in the power module;
FIG. 9 is a schematic of a circuit for gating a control signal of the gate driver module;
FIG. 10 is a schematic of a temperature sensing module;
FIG. 11 is a schematic of a watchdog timer module;
FIG. 12 is a schematic of a current-sense module;
FIG. 13 is a schematic of a fault latch module; and
FIG. 14 is a schematic of a contactor module.
Patent Application
20070194009
