Gate drive and switching — what 20 nC gate charge means for your driver
The IRL520NPBF: Gate charge is 20 nC at 5V Vgs. That is moderate — a typical MCU GPIO sourcing a few milliamps will take microseconds to charge the gate, so for PWM above a few kHz you will want a dedicated gate driver. The input capacitance is 440 pF at 25V Vds, which helps keep the Miller plateau manageable. The ±16V maximum gate-source rating gives headroom for gate-drive overshoot, but stay within the 4V to 10V drive range the datasheet specifies for achieving the rated Rds(on).
Sourcing and lifecycle
The IRL520NPBF carries an Active product status, meaning Infineon continues to manufacture it with no announced end-of-life. For a BOM line that needs this TO-220AB N-channel part, there is no LTB clock to manage.
