High-Side Not Working in Half-Bridge

This is a great example why neatness and attention to detail matter. Sloppiness like drawing nets right thru other parts leads to mistakes or at least makes it less likely mistakes will be noticed (because it already looks like a mistake so the brain tunes out the real ones).

Look carefully at the schematic. Note that the anode of the diode and one side of C1 do not have a dot showing that the software thinks there are connections there. Maybe it does, but then the schematic is misleading. If the software (looks like Eagle?) doesn't think those nets are connected, then they won't be connected on the board. Both those parts create the power supply for the high side drive, so these issues match your symptoms.

Once again folks: Neatness and attention to detail matter!

This should be self-evident, but apparently there are a lot of sloppy people out there. There is no place and no excuse for this in engineering. This schematic is sloppy in various places. I would never dream of letting a customer or anyone else see a schematic from me that looked like this. I would be embarassed to let anyone see this, and you should be too. The fact that you're not says a lot about you. Doing it right is really quite easy and hardly takes any time. Just avoiding one such error makes it worth while. How long have you spent diagnosing the problem and will spend fixing it, compared to maybe 5 minutes to clean up the schematic and run the ERC and DRC checks? Don't draw nets thru or right up against parts, if you rotate a part fix the text so that it is normally readable again, make sure the text doesn't collide with other things, etc. Again, this should all be self-evident. Hopefully you have learned a lesson here and will be more careful in the future.


As Olin mentions, the schematic looks like it has a few (unintentional most likely) mistakes that will be propagated through to the PCB. Looks like there may be a (according to datasheet diagram) bypass cap missing too.
I wouldn't worry too much if this is the first attempt at doing this stuff, and it's a personal project.
Take care with drawing the schematic, learn about and get into running ERC/DRC checks regularly, and these kind of mistakes become a lot harder to make.


  1. Substituting a 100 uF capacitor for a 1 uF capacitor is not valid at higher frequencies because the ESR and ESL of a tantalum or electrolytic capacitor come into play and become dominant at higher frequencies.

  2. Stray inductance caused by layout can cause problems. Make sure these loops enclose a minimum of area:

    • IC1 VB to C1 and back to IC1 VS
    • IC1 HO to R1 to Q1 gate, and Q1 source back to IC1 VS
    • IC1 LO to R2 to Q2 gate, and Q2 source back to IC1 COM
    • HIN driver OUT to X3 pin 1 to IC1 HIN, and IC1 VSS back to HIN driver GND. Yes, you probably need to route a ground line with the signal; expecting GND to magically stay at 0 V via X1 pin 2 is probably not enough
    • LIN driver OUT to X3 pin 1 to IC1 HIN, and IC1 VSS back to HIN driver GND.
  3. Check VIH and VIL for IC1 HIN and make sure you're driving the right levels.

  4. VC (Q1 drain) doesn't seem to be hooked up to a power supply.

  5. Also, the 1N400x series diode might be too slow for the application. Try a Schottky or ultra-fast diode.